Microfabrica Announces MEMS Design Competition

BURBANK, Calif. Aug. 25 -- Microfabrica, a microdevice manufacturer, and Mosis, an integrated circuit fabrication service, have launched the Efab Access Design Competition for microdevices. Efab Access, a prototyping service for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microdevice development, is the first multiproject-run service to offer Microfabrica's Efab 3-D micromanufacturing technology. The three winning microdevice designs will be built, free of charge, through the Efab Access program. The contest was last held in 2003, when Microfabrica was called MEMGen.

The 2003 first-place winner in the design challenge competition, a distributed-mass micromachined gyroscope submitted by Cenk Acar, then a PhD student in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department’s microsystems lab at the University of California, Irvine. (Photo: Microfabrica)

The Efab Access Design Competition is open to anyone with a commercial or research interest in microdevices, including businesses, university faculty, students, research labs, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers and design contractors. There is no limit to the number of entries per person or organization, but each MEMS or microdevice design can be no larger than 5 mm x 5 mm.

Microfabrica and Mosis will award three contest winners with prototypes of their designs. In addition, the top three contestants will receive MEMS-related prizes: first and second place winners will receive Segway human transporters, while the third place designer will receive a Toshiba projector.

Efab Access gives companies, universities, research labs, and individuals the ability to design three-dimensional MEMS and microdevices and have their prototypes produced economically through Mosis. The program opens the door to a wide variety of 3-D applications, including sensors, actuators, radio frequency devices, optical devices and medical instruments.

Entries must be submitted by Nov. 11 and the winners will be announced in January 2006. The submissions will be judged by a panel comprised of independent industry experts, including Al Pisano of the University of California, Berkeley and Andrei Shkel of the University of California, Irvine.

For more details about the EFAB Access Design Competition and full contest rules, visit: www.EFABAccessDC.com