CAD Tools for the Co-design of Heterogeneous Systems of MEMS and Sensors, Electronics and Packaging.

Systems incorporating MEMS devices are growing in their level of integration and complexity, often including multiple MEMS sensors/actuators, analog and digital circuitry, micro-controllers and custom packaging. Many of the delays in bringing MEMS-based systems to market stem from errors made in integrating the MEMS with the rest of the system causing costly re-designs. Co-design of the system enables designers to catch composition errors early and also to optimize the entire system and trade-off requirements between the MEMS and electronics. The result is higher product performance and lower manufacturing costs.
This talk will present how MEMS CAD tools coupled with standard analog and digital design tools may be used for the co-design of MEMS devices, their associated electronics and packaging in commercial MEMS systems. Examples will be given of important co-design issues such as how to simulate packaging effects on MEMS device performance, how to co-simulate electronics and MEMS to calculate system timing, and how to model and evaluate the thermal, mechanical and electrical performance of new packaging concepts such as system in package. The talk will also discuss design tools and strategies for those system designers wishing to utilize third party or off the shelf MEMS sub-systems.
Mary Ann Maher is the CEO of SoftMEMS LLC. She received her Ph.D. degree in 1989 from Caltech in the area of semiconductor device modeling. She subsequently conducted post- doctoral studies at the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology(CSEM) in Neuchatel, Switzerland and joined Tanner Research in 1992 becoming the software architect for their IC design tools. She moved to MEMSCAP in 1999 as an Executive Vice President and became the company's CTO in 2001. She founded SoftMEMS LLC in 2004 to address the need for co-design tools for systems incorporating MEMS sensors, electronics and packaging.