Fraunhofer IPMS

Brief Profile

Fraunhofer IPMS stands for applied research and development at the highest international level in the fields of photonic microsystems, microsystem technologies, nanoelectronic technologies and wireless microsystems. Innovative processes and products using our technologies can be found in all major markets - such as information and communication technologies, consumer goods, automotive technology, semiconductors, measurement and medical technology.

The headquarters are located at Maria-Reiche-Straße 2 in Dresden-Klotzsche. A MOEMS/MEMS cleanroom of 1500 m² (class 4 according to ISO 14644-1) can be found at the premises, which can be used for technology development up to pilot production of innovative microsystems on 200 mm. The range of services includes wafer processing, characterization & test, packaging and interconnection technology as well as the organization of external services and subcontracting.

The "Center Nanoelectronic Technologies" division has its own cleanroom infrastructure for process and material development on 300 mm wafers with its location"An der Bartlake 5" in the immediate vicinity of the chip manufacturer Globalfoundries. For processing customer orders, 4000 m² of clean room space of class 6 and 3 (according to ISO 14644-1) as well as laboratory space for more than 60 processing and analytical tools are available. The equipment park includes deposition and etching equipment as well as inspection and analysis equipment for determining defects and measuring coating properties.

At our Cottbus site, we work on monolithic integrated actuator and sensor systems as well as terahertz micromodules and applications in the "Integrated Silicon Systems" branch of the institute.

In the Fraunhofer Center for "Microelectronic and Optical Systems for Biomedicine", operated jointly with Fraunhofer IOF and IZI in Erfurt, the focus is on novel systems for applications in biomedicine.

To meet the expectations of our customers, our company is certified by DEKRA according to the DIN EN 9001:2015 standard for research, development and manufacturing, the corresponding semiconductor and microsystem processes, integrated actuator/sensor technology and consulting.

Research Highlights

 

Spatial Light Modulators

The spatial light modulators developed at Fraunhofer IPMS consist of arrays of micromirrors on semiconductor chips, whereby the number of mirrors varies depending on the application, from a few hundred to several millions.

 

MEMS Scanners

To date, more than 50 different resonant scanners have been designed and manufactured. They are made to deflect light either one-dimensionally or two-dimensionally or for high-speed optical path length modulation.

 

Wireless Microsystems

The business unit “Wireless Microsystems” provides product-related partial and complete solutions for customer- and application-specific problems of hard- and software. This includes optical wire­less communication (Li-Fi), maintenance-free and battery-free RFID sensor nodes, integrated intercon­nected systems, track and trace as well as big data and data analysis.

 

Environmental Sensing

The “Environmental Sensing” (ENV) business unit focuses on the development of sensory de­vices, components and subsystems to be used in application-specific devices for the detection and evaluation of environmental conditions.

 

Neuromorphic Computing

Increasing digitization is constantly driving the demands on electronic hardware. Speed, performance, miniaturization and energy efficiency are becoming increasingly important when it comes to enabling Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications.

 

Quantum Computing

Quantum computers have the potential to exceed the limits of conventional computing systems many times over. Medicine, logistics, material development and cryptography are just some of the fields that can experience enormous progress through quantum computers. Although there are already a variety of different approaches to quantum computing, there are currently only a few realizations in Germany that go beyond the laboratory setup.