The first patent granted to Nanusens is for a round device with a diameter of less than 150 microns with three evenly distributed springs that are spiral so that they can be long to give high sensitivity. This design can be used by Nanusens in a number of its sensor designs such as a bone conduction sensor, motion detector and accelerometer, among others.
"You can’t simply shrink a MEMS sensor design and build it with the CMOS metal layers," explains Dr Josep Montanyà, the founder and CEO of Nanusens. "You are going from micro structures that you can see under a microscope to nano structures that need an electron microscope. That is a whole new realm where superficial forces become much more dominant, and there is no space to build a large proof mass nor large soft springs. We have had to invent completely new sensor structures that will work reliably when made in a standard CMOS fab line, which means that they need to work with large residual stress and large process tolerances. These have taken years to perfect but now we have working NEMS in silicon so we are filing ten patent families that between them protect more than 100 inventions. Now we can safely start showing them to customers across a wide range of application areas as we have disruptively better solutions for inertial and pressure sensing, ultrasound, microphones and magnetometers, among others. Excitingly we have many more patents to file over the coming years for yet more novel sensors and applications to meet the dramatically growing market need for sensors that make devices aware and therefore smarter."
Graham Hine who recently joined Nanusens as Chairman added, "We held off filing so that we could do a suite of patents simultaneously as this comprehensively covers and protects our technology in one go. This is much safer than doing them one at a time as rivals could devise patent workarounds once they read each patent. That will be incredibly difficult now with our blanket protection of every aspect of our innovative nanotechnology. Patents are valuable assets for the company. Having the patents in process and working NEMS in the lab are the two milestones that investors told us that we needed to achieve in order to start our Series A funding so we have officially started that."
Graham Hine has over 25 years of C-level experience in high technology companies driving growth and fundraising. "Graham joins us at the perfect time to help drive the growth of the company. He has successfully raised funding for several companies which will be invaluable for our upcoming Series A funding round,” adds Montanyà.
"I have been in the semiconductor and sensors industry for over two decades, so I know the challenges that conventional MEMS face. Nanusens’ ability to create nano-scale MEMS in conventional CMOS fabs is the disruptive breakthrough that will enable MEMS production to grow at the astronomical rate that IoT, smartphones, earbuds and other smart devices need. Nanusens MEMS-within-CMOS devices have lower cost, lower power, better performance and are smaller. Once I saw the demo of these working devices in the lab, I could not wait to join the company and start evangelizing this innovative technology, the various nano-sensors and their many applications," Graham Hine concludes.
Founded in 2014 by Dr. Josep Montanyà and Dr. Marc Llamas, Nanusens is headquartered in Paignton, Devon, England with Research and Development offices in Barcelona, Spain and Shenzen, China. It leverages the research and expertise developed by the founders’ previous company, Baolab Microsystems.
www.nanusens.com
