The Worldwide MEMS Design Contest Officially Starts

Cadence, X-FAB, Coventor and Reutlingen University have Selected 10 Design Teams as Semi-Finalists  

Cadence Academic Network, Coventor, X-FAB and Reutlingen University have teamed up since the beginning of 2016, to organize a worldwide MEMS Design Contest. The design phase of the contest officially started on March 1st, 2017 after the selection of ten semi-finalists, who will go on to compete for the top prize. The contest was created to highlight and encourage the development of innovative MEMS and mixed-signal designs. Contest organizers carefully evaluated submissions from all over the world, and selected the ten most inventive proposals to be further explored and developed, during the design stage of the contest. Submissions ranged from teams of two to nine, addressing areas such as surgical robots, energy harvesting and automotive HUD applications. 

“We are encouraged by the impressive quality and range of design submissions we received. This highlights how MEMS design is a specialized skill that is becoming increasingly important to fulfill the growing demand for IoT applications.” said Mr. Volker Herbig, Vice President, BU MEMS at X-FAB Group. “The semi-finalists will now go on to develop their MEMS and mixed-signal designs using state-of-the-art Cadence and Coventor tools in combination with X-FAB’s latest MEMS and CMOS design kits. We look forward to seeing the creative ways the contest semi-finalists will use our integrated design and manufacturing technology.”

The design phase of the contest that begun on March 1st, will continue until December 31, 2017. All ten design teams in the semi-finals, will receive the design tools, methodologies and process technologies, needed to create their MEMS and mixed-signal designs. The participants will also get free access to various IP blocks that can be used as part of their design, such as digital SC, I/Os, RAM and ROM blocks.

During CDNLive EMEA, that will take place in Munich, on May 15-17th 2017, a poster session will be held to provide the opportunity to the participants, to present their proposals to a broad audience. The aim of the poster session is to further support the discussions between the contestants and experts from all organizing parties.

The top three finalists will be announced on February 28, 2018 and prizes will be awarded at the annual Cadence user conference, CDNLive EMEA, in Munich, in May 2018. The first-prize winner will receive a $5000 cash award, have their design manufactured at X-FAB’s wafer production facilities, and get a free one-year license of Coventor’s MEMS design software. The second and third prize winners will receive $2,000 and $1,000 cash prizes respectively, along with a private tour of X-FAB’s foundry facilities.