Omnitron sensor mems could free us from rotating tops in autonomous cars (and also lower costs)

Omnitron sensorsThat makes MEMS sensor chips, has raised $ 13 million to create economic sensors for self -employed cars. If it works, we could say goodbye to those large rotating domes on autonomous vehicles.

The investment will feed the expansion of Omnitron engineering and operations, accelerating mass production of the company’s first product, a scanning mirror of steps of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) reliable and affordable for multiple markets. Mems have been used in everything, from a Nintendo Wii to pneumatic pressure sensors.

Advisors current led the round with the participation of the former investor L’Antitude Ventures.

Rationalization of Mem sensor production, which have been limited by expensive and labor manufacturing methods for decades, the intellectual manufacturing property of Omnitron is the critical enabler for optical condemnations (OXC) in artificial intelligence data centers (AI) , optical subsystems in a long time ago- Lidar rank for autonomous navigation, transparent screens in headphones and extended reality (XR) glasses, and precision laser spectrometry for the detection of methane gas.

The sensors can enter OXC for AI data centers and optical subsystems for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), drones, XR headphones, toxic gas detection systems and other connected electronic ones that are an integral part of our daily life.

Markets driven by the sensor

Omnitron addresses the main markets with its Mem sensor technology:

• Improvement of performance and energy efficiency in AI data centers: OXC Photonics based on OMNITRON mems for tensioning architectures increases transmission speed and reliability in a low power device, which improves the workflow of work of In the data centers. According to New Street Research, this market will approach $ 30B in 2027.
• Advance of the affordability and reliability of Lidar in autonomous vehicles: the Omnitron Mem Steps Escane mirror is aimed at a general market of Lidar subsystems that is expected to reach $ 6.3b by 2027, according to Yole Intelligence.
• Improvement of the screen quality on the XR headphones limited for resources/glasses: Omnitron’s MEMS mirror satisfies the growing demand for XR optics, a market that IDECHEX hopes will exceed $ 5B in 2034.

“Mem sensors are smart microsyle devices that allow us to touch the world through silicon,” said Aguilar. “However, old and inefficient manufacturing methods have prevented the type of growth in MEMS that is typical in semiconductors. That is about to change. Our MEMS manufacturing IP offers a new paradigm for precise and affordable sensors that produce scale mass. With a large capital investment and with additional funds from L’Antitude Ventures, our company can now comply with the promise of our technology. “

Origins

Founded in 2019 by a central group of innovators of the MEMS industry, OMNITRON SENSORS has invented a new MEMS manufacturing IP that improves the performance and reliability of the device, and which speeds up the assembly to produce Mem sensors for high volume markets prices sensitive.

Aguilar was quite frank about how the company began, which now has 12 people. I used to work in companies such as Google and Tesla, working on Lidar systems. He thought of Lidar as the “ruin of my existence.”

The company began with Cto Trent Huang, an expert in quantum computer and manufacturing manufacturing.

“I am a nerd, and I have spent my career building or integrating sensors in robots so that they can see and operate in the real world. He is working with these sensors, specifically Lidar, who saw the promise of what Lidar could do for robots. But I also directly experienced frustration with the use of Lidar in real world applications. Although billions of dollars have been spent to bring lidar to the market, we do not see it in each car. What is promoting that problem is not necessarily a sexy word, but it is reliability. “

He said the sensors often fail after a few months of operating on the road. That has been the bottleneck for large car manufacturers, who do not want to serve a car for replacing a sensor.

Aguilar said: “That’s why Lidar has not reached the market. And with my experience in the construction of these technologies, and as a good engineer, I would visit these suppliers and go, hey, what the hell is happening?”

He saw a great game in semiconductor manufacturing processes and how to make them notable. That is why he formed the team five years ago and went to work in a plan to replace one of the mobile parts with small small mirrors made with MEMS technology, where the mechanical characteristics are recorded in semiconductors to have small mobile pieces. In this case, they are small mirrors in a chip that can move.

Now in its third capital round, the company is refining its chips, which contain a mirror of 10 millimeters in diameter (that is the gold part in the middle of the chips). Articulates 60 degrees, moves to the left and the right, and has a settlement time of a millisecond. That is very fast, and meets the requirements of a Lidar system, said Aguilar.

“That has really interested our clients. And due to that interest, we were able to ensure three letters of intention, two in the automotive industry, one in the energy sector, and valued in hundreds of millions of dollars, ”he said.

How it works

Lidar means light and range detection. Lidar systems measure the distance by firing a high -power infrared laser to an objective and measuring the pulse that bounces backwards. It works well, either in the day or night.

A lidar sensor is a great theory solution for an autonomous car. Feel the world around the car, which then analyzes whether there are security threats while a car leads itself. Essentially reproduces the situational consciousness that any human driver has.

But the lidar is based on a laser. Shoot the laser light from the car. Light hits objects and bounces, and that helps paint an image of the environment digitally. The system receives the signal back and then calculates where the object is and in which direction it is moving. A processor takes all those points in a “points cloud” and then gives meaning to all data.

Each lidar system has a laser. It also has a scanner, something that projects the laser in the world and a receiver that recovers the signal.

The rotating device in a lidar sensor is scanning the environment, spraying the laser light and measuring the millions of points in a scene as the light bounces back. It is scanning the environment. The mirror is similar to a large rotating disco ball. A photo detector is like a camera that captures light.

It is a mobile component that rotates the Lidar so that it can obtain a 360 degree view of the environment. The challenge in a moving car is that all this has to happen quickly because the environment changes as the car progresses.

The Galvo Laser, abbreviation of Galvanometer, is an optical device that moves a mirror in response to electrical signals, usually in the Galvo Laser scanner. The mirror movement allows precise control of the direction and the focus of the laser beam. Mem chips can replace this device to a cost fraction.

“That is the great interruption we are contributing to the market. And that is what we are changing within the Lidar unit, ”said Aguilar. “It is much cheaper and is more reliable. That is what Silicon does. “

Progress towards production

To take the product to the market, the company had to design a new semiconductor process to manufacture mems devices so that they are smaller, cheaper and faster. Chips MEMS manufacturers were not ready for this type of progress, which is ten times dense than others in the market.

“We had to return to the first principles and design a completely new technological node for Mess to bring this to the market. And it is a great leap in density. So we build a much more dense chip that allows us to achieve this performance, ”said Aguilar.

As an example, a characteristic called aspect ratio for mems devices is normally approximate normal.

Now the company has received its first low -volume manufacturing chips, and is testing the parts of reliability. The company is using contracts or manufacturers of contracts that make chips in the USA., To make sensor chips.

But moving from the “laboratory to the fabulous”, or from the evidence to manufacturing, is where “many of these technologies and companies die,” said Aguilar.

Now the company is moving to build chips in some silicon wafers per week to thousands per month, so it can demonstrate reliability for automotive customers, said Aguilar. That means going to bigger mems factories with greater capacity. That caused the financing round.

For each vehicle, there are probably four MEMS mirrors and two per lidar system. The MEMS SESNOR is smaller, cheaper and does not require so much power. There are rivals out there, including chips mems manufacturers in China, but Aguilar believes that it has a technological advantage.

In addition to cars, there are telecommunications, augmented reality and space communications devices that can use technology.

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