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ISSYS Completes DARPA Contract

Ypsilanti, Michigan, May 1, 2000 - ISSYS Inc. announced the successful completion of its DARPA contract for the "Flexible Manufacturing of Dissolved Wafer Capacitive Sensors"
"This project was certainly unusual in its breadth and complexity," noted Project PI, Dr. Nader Najafi. "As part of this project, we've developed facilitates, technology, and products. Each of these parts provides only marginal value to the DoD and MEMS community, but combined they provide a means to create and produce high performance MEMS systems."

ISSYS' facility, while occupying about 8,000 sq. ft. is currently capable or producing some 5,000,000 MEMS devices in its current configuration. "More importantly, we've designed and built a facility that can produce a wide variety of MEMS devices with minimum switching times or costs," said Mr. Randy Grimes, Director of Business Development. "In doing so, we've attacked some of the fundamental paradigms about MEMS production. We're no longer worried about needing automotive type volumes anymore. Given our flexibility, we're just as happy to change over between several medium or smaller volume products."

In terms of technology, ISSYS has developed solutions for real-world MEMS problems like corrosion resistance, hermetic seals, hermetic lead transfers, and wafer level packaging to name a few. According to Dr. Yafan Zhang, V.P. of Technology, ISSYS has focused on "...the application specific technologies that get left out of Ph.D. thesis. Maintaining a high vacuum within a cavity isn't generally considered glamorous enough for technical journals or to get your doctorate, but try to maintain consistent device performance without it, and you can see its importance."

ISSYS concluded its project by demonstrating its fabrication facilities and technologies in its project and product portfolio. As a result of this work, ISSYS has Ultra-High Sensitivity Vacuum Sensors, Micro-Pressure Sensors, and Wide-Range Industrial Pressure Sensors ready for commercialization.

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