Big Ideas for the Future!

We are glad to let you know that MISEC submission Safer Prenatal Tests to "Big Ideas for the Future" has been accepted along 2 other submissions from Heriot-Watt!

"Big Ideas for the Future" is "[...] a new report from Research Councils UK (RCUK) and Universities UK that explores the excellent research taking place in UK higher education at the moment and what it will mean for the public in 20 years time". This was organised in the context of the Universities Week 2011.

Alumni feature 2 - Dr Weixing Yu

In the continuing "Alumni feature" series, I have invited Dr Weixing Yu, a former post doctoral researcher at MISEC and now a Research Professor at the Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (University of Changchung, China) to answer our questions.



Weixing Yu (centre, red shirt) with his students

 MISEC BLOG: Hi Weixing, congratulations for your distinguished position under the scheme “100 Talents Program”! Could describe us your career and different projects after you got your PhD?

       After my Ph.D, I worked for APS (a singapore company) in IC-packaging industry. There, I was mainly in charge of Photolithography process for wafer bumping. Then two years later, I moved to Heriot-Watt Unversity to work in MISEC as a research association on project of '3-D Mintegration' to develop a flexible and cheap manufacturing method, i.e. Electrostatic Induced lithography Method. After three years of postdoc, I received a research professor position from CAS [Chinese Academy of Science] under the scheme of '100 talents program'. Under this program, I can have a start funding of 3million RMB. With this funding, I now have my own 1000 class clean room with an area of 100m2. For facilities, we have equipment to be able to do UV-LIGA process and we are now trying to buy more new equipment including e-beam evaporator, flip chip bonder, Ion-beam etching and so on. In the mean time, I am also undertaking two NSFC [Natural Science Fondation of China] projects and one MOST [Ministry of Science and Technology] project. 

MISEC BLOG: What do you prefer most in your current job?

    I will say 'freedom'. In my current job, I actually have chance to do any project which is interesting to me. Of course, it will depend on whether the funding is availabe to this project or not.

MISEC BLOG: Is the work atmosphere very different in China compared to UK?

    Definitely! People in my institute work very hard and we actually have no annual leave. We only have public holiday. I must say to work in UK is more relaxing and you even need to report to clean room manager Mark if you want to work over time in MISEC :).

MISEC BLOG: Do the Chinese universities recruit a lot of overseas workforce?

    Not really. Chinese government is trying to attract more and more talents from overseas, but only limit to those with Chinese nationality, like me. But I can see the policy is changing. More and More Masters from overseas every year come to chinese universities and institutes for different kind of cooperation, like Prof.Marc Desmulliez. 

MISEC BLOG: And finally, what is the current tendency or trend in MEMS activities in China?

   In my opinion, the trend for MEMS in China is: 1) Applying MEMS technology for biology and health application; 2) Shrinking the size of MEMS to develop NEMS for more new applications.

Thank you very much for this and all the best! 

Weixing has also reminded me of the coming ICOME 2011, International Conference on Micro/Nano Optical Engineering, which will be held in Changchun, in June of this year ! The deadline for abstract submission is the end of the month (30th of April).

MISEC proudly presents ...

... The first fluidic-logo-gadget !

Thanks to David Watson for his assistance and motivation on this. This playful gadget could be used for demonstration purpose on UCAS or STEM visits. It is envisaged that pupils could "play"  with the food colouring to make the wheel changing colours etc ...
More generally, it could be a way to illustrate our rapid-prototyping capabilities here at MISEC.

Next under this new "gadgets" label, a video of the device!

Alumni Feature 1 - Dr Dominik Weiland

Today I would like to present the first of several special "Alumni Features".
I have asked several of our former MISEC colleagues to tell us about their new life in the industry in UK or abroad. This will be the occasion for some to discover what kind of jobs are accessible after a PhD in MISEC, how these people are doing, what are their struggles (if any!) and what do they think about the MEMS job market in Scotland or Europe.
Dominik Weiland ("Dom" for the old ones!), who did his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Marc Desmulliez and Dr J.F. Snowdon in the manufacturing of 2D Optical Fibre Arrays, has been the first to answer my call, and here are his words of wisdom!


MISEC blog: Hi Dom, can you describe us your career since you graduated?

After graduating from HWU I joined the Institute for System Level Integration (first based in Livingston later moved to Heriot Watt campus) as MEMS Design Engineer. After several years of working on diverse technology transfer and research projects with both SMEs and Multi-nationals and iSLIs partner universities I decided it was time to move on and head back home. So in 2010 I joined the sensors group of TRW Automotive based in Germany on Lake Constance co-developing MEMS sensors for automotive safety applications together with large MEMS sensor suppliers.

MISEC blog: What do you like most in your job? Is there something you would like to change?

What I like a lot is the fact that I get to see how the "big-boys" amongst the sensor manufacturers go about their business, and to realize that everyone "just cooks with water" as we say in German.
I also find myself travelling quite a bit to attend supplier audits, design reviews, customer meetings etc.
Having said that, I enjoy travelling but the downside is that I am away from my family a lot. So if I could change could change something I would take them along.

MISEC blog:  So far what has been your biggest challenge in your professional career?

Sitting in one office with Markus for 3 years... (!!!)

MISEC blog: And as a conclusion, how do you find the job market in Europe for a MEMS engineer?

I would say the job market is very positive right now, good MEMS engineers seem to be at a premium resulting in long delays when filling a position and an excellent negotiation position for the prospective employee. Sadly for Scotland and the UK however, the MEMS job market in mainland Europe seems to be more vibrant with more choice of potential employers.

Many thanks for your time, and all the best!

Micro - Neurology Blog

Hello All

I let you know that I have created a blog for MicroElectronics, Microsystems, Neurology  (EEG-MEMS- my passion), Optical Engineering and Programming . I use to post very useful news often and I have thought that you might find it interested and useful for you and your research.

       Here is the link http://luisacevedo6.blogspot.com/

If you would like to participate, please send me an email and I will send you an invitation!

Best Regards

Luis

IMAPS-UK Making MEMS Work, BIG Ideas for Small Devices Seminar – 27th January 2011

Thanks to everyone from MISEC who came along and presented posters at the IMAPS-UK Making MEMS Work seminar. The event was rescheduled after the 'snow chaos' affected many roads and airports making it unsafe to travel to the event. A presentation about the new Smart Microsystems flagship project with IeMRC, Heriot Watt University and the University of Edinburgh was given by Jon Terry on Marc's behalf (who was in China at the time) and was very well received.

There were many interesting talks given mostly by industrial speakers concerning the challenges faced by industry when trying to make MEMS work both from technical and business perspectives. The presentations covered topics from design and fabrication to packaging and test. The keynote speaker from Yole Developpement, Eric Mounier, finished the day with a very interesting presentation about MEMS manufacturing and packaging trends. He concluded that new approaches to manufacturing and packaging must result in smaller, low cost, high performance devices, so it seems we have our work cut-out for us!

Thanks to John Carr from Renishaw and Matt Brown from Inseto for organising the event on behalf of IMAPS-UK and to Rosanne Holburn and the team at iSLI for being such fantasic hosts. The event was a great success and we hope to offer more one day seminars in the future. The next IMAPS-UK and IMAPS Europe event is EMPC in September 2011, abstract deadline 8th Feb:

http://uk.imapseurope.org/index.php/event-calender/details/6-EMPC-2001

Visit ot Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics

"David Watson and I spent two weeks at the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics. Changchun is the automobile town of China, where large car manufacturers such as Wolkswagen, Audi etc.. have established factories. It is also the birthplace of the Chinese laser.

As one of the 40 Senior Visiting Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences tihs year, I was invited to give a series of lectures about commercialisation of research., MEMS hermeticity, MOEMS packaging and the basic understanding of an accelerometer for automative applications.

David and I were treated very well with lunches and dinners every day in a restaurant. The accomodation was superb and our hosts were extremely nice to us. With a research income of around £200M, the Insitute is a formidable force to reckon with and a good partner for future collaborations.

One note of advice, do not visit the Institute in Janaury/February, with -20 degrees Celsius outside, it was difficult to enjoy the sights in town :)"

Greetings from Changchun

Marc Desmulliez and David Watson visiting Chanchun, China

Marc and I are now safely back from braving temperatures of -25C, pretty chilly but not too bad with a decent pair of thermals, which have the added advantage of being exceptionally stylish. We were guests of Weixing Yu at the Changchun Institute of Optics,Fine Mechanies and Physics (or CIOMP, not a bad acronym but I think MISEC wins this battle of abbreviations...)
While there, Marc gave a few lectures about who MISEC are, what we do and why the iPhone is rubbish. It went down pretty well though as he's been invited back to present at a conference in June. I'm sure they'd appreciate other speaker submissions too so if you know anyone who uses lasers or optics in their work then get submitting, can't think of a single person at the moment but I've heard rumours of equipment such as lasers and UV-liga machines in the department so they must be used by someone...
While Marc was sleeping in his hotel room between lectures, I was slaving away trying to apply the direct writing process I'm working on to the equipment they have there. It's a cunning reworking of an AFM scanning probe tip and software that uses optical fibres to deliver a laser beam to the surface at (hopefully) sub micron linewidths. The advantage of this is that the optic can deliver light from less than 2µm above the substrate. It can probably get closer but I was being cautious.


I wasn't entirely successful in my experiments but did discover alternative chemical for use in my process which are potentially advantageous. If anyone else can think of a use for using an AFM tip to deliver light, then I'm sure they'd be interested too. Feel free to come and ask me questions about it for a bit more info.
To sign off, I leave you with a nugget of fascinating information:
Did you know that the "B" in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stands for 'Benoit B. Mandelbrot'?

Welcome!

Welcome to MISEC Research group blog!
MISEC is the MicroSystems Engineering Centre at Heriot-Watt University, Scotland.
This blog is intended to be a window for showcasing some of our research work as well as an information and debating platform for the group.