High-end sensing for advanced industry equipment and consumer electronics (I&C)

As modern times are dominated by information overload, gathering the most meaningful data at the interface of hardware and the real world is critical. With most attention in semiconductors these days going to more efficient computation and insatiable thirst for memory, sensor advancements should not be underestimated. In the new era of the semiconductor industry, performance advances will depend as much on sensing, metrology, and data analytics as they have on lithography, deposition, and etch technologies. Traditional process control approaches are reaching their limits, driving a fundamental transformation in semiconductor equipment. Over the next decade, semiconductor equipment will evolve from standalone process tools into intelligent sensing platforms capable of continuously monitoring, analysing, and optimizing manufacturing operations in real time.

In consumer electronics, convergence of artificial intelligence, advanced sensing, novel form factors, and seamless connectivity are crucial drivers. Among the most influential trends are the rapid emergence of wearable devices and the growing adoption of foldable smartphones, both redefining our daily technology interactions.

Imec has been on the cutting edge of sensing, with world-firsts in different modalities. And this from early research into new photosensitive materials, through disruptive device concepts all the way to fully integrated system prototypes. In industrial applications, imec established a position in the supply chain of several top equipment manufacturers. Examples include extreme ultraviolet (EUV) detectors for lithography, direct electron detectors for microscopy and ultra-high-speed imagers for high-end machine vision. In consumer applications, we have launched spin-off companies in the field of imaging technology. Examples include on-chip spectral filters for multispectral sensors and vertical-waveguide-based color splitters for unprecedented sensitivity, both targeting smartphone cameras.

In this talk, we will give an overview of sensor hardware being developed at imec. This will span both exploratory concepts such as diamond-based quantum sensors for industrial inspection all the way to manufacturing ready technologies such as tunnel magnetoresistance for gesture recognition.