Coventor has been helping people design MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) for longer than just about anyone else in the world. Its tools and models are used by the top makers of things like gyroscopes and accelerometers, which have been quietly adding the ‘cool’ in ink jet printers and automotive air bags for years. Problem is, ink jet printers and air bags ain’t as cool as an iPad or a Nintendo Wii. Which is exactly why the Coventor story is so exciting.
The MEMS opportunity is huge and growing as more and more products incorporate their sensing capabilities (think of the rotating iPad or iPhone display, or the interactive capabilities of Wii, or the compass in a Tissot Touch watch – that’s MEMS at work). The trouble is, most IC designers can’t even spell MEMS, never mind figure out how to design them into their products.
So Coventor is working on bringing MEMS to the mainstream – the democratization of MEMS, we call it. Read a Wired Island- authored and placed viewpoint here on the topic. What we need is more than just a small handful of PhDs to be able to design MEMs into products, and more than just a few specialized fabs to be able to build them . To do its part, Coventor is bringing out a new development suite that will make integrating MEMS and ICs a much more straightforward proposition, and perhaps blow open the whole market if we can jumpstart a true fabless, multi-company ecosystem type of model.
Its latest offering, MEMS+, is based on Coventor’s years of experience in MEMS design, but integrates all that cool 3D design and modeling capability with traditional EDA tools that IC designers are familiar with –like Cadence’s Virtuoso for analog/mixed signal design, and MatLab Simulink from the MathWorks, which system designers use all the time. It’s just what the doctor ordered if MEMs are going to make it the prime time stage of consumer electronics.
The result is a market that just may be ready to cross the chasm. Stay tuned to your iPad to follow the Coventor story.
