X-FAB Silicon Foundries today announced two major MEMS milestones: completion of its dedicated noble metal facility for MEMS and post-CMOS processing – and shipment of its billionth MEMS device. X-FAB will discuss these new MEMS achievements at the upcoming Sensors Expo on June 6 and 7, 2012, in Booth #826, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill.

The new facility, built specifically for the processing of MEMS, extends X-FAB’s existing MEMS capabilities in Erfurt, Germany, and initially adds gold deposition and patterning capability. It can handle approximately 100,000 wafers a year and will process MEMS devices for the rapidly expanding consumer, mobile and computer markets. Work began on the noble metal facility at the end of 2011 and was completed this month on schedule. The full equipment set is installed and being qualified for production.

Iain Rutherford, Business Line Manager for X-FAB’s MEMS foundry service, commented, “With today’s announcement of the new noble metal facility, we further demonstrate our commitment to MEMS manufacturing and, along with our earlier addition of 8-inch MEMS capability, we add even more value to the wafer manufacturing process. Since 1995, we have manufactured and shipped a billion MEMS devices, including gyroscopes, accelerometers, pressure sensors, thermopiles and microfluidic devices, as well as CMOS integrated MEMS sensors and wafer-level packaged devices for consumer, automotive and medical applications. The addition of the new MEMS facility reflects our passion to fully support our customers with MEMS, sensors and analog/mixed-signal technology foundry services.”