Science & Technology I Consultation project

MONOLYTHICAL INTEGRATED & TUNABLE SAW DEVICES
From Research to Market

OUTLINE

BACKGROUND OF TECHNOLOGY

A piezoelectric device is one that converts kenetic energy into electrical energy. Tunable Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) devices are piezoelectric devices that are made to vibrate by the application of electical energy. These vibrations (acoustic waves) pass through a crystal with in the device and in so doing may be filtered to very precise wave length. At the other side of the crystal the acoustic waves are converted back to electrical energy with very precise wave properties using the piezoelectric characteristics of the crystal.

Our clients have developed a method of making SAW devices on a much smaller scale than is currently in commercial production.

SAW devices are useful at frequencies from 10-2000 MHz, bandwidths from .1-500 MHz, and impulse response lengths to 100 us. In many applications they offer capabilities unattainable by any other technology. The paragraphs that follow describe some of the many Phonon SAW products and their applications.

RESTATE THE PROBLEM AS PRESENTED TO US

CURRENT RESEARCHED APPLICATIONS

Since piezoelectric devices are used to modulate waves moving through a particular device, these devices could be used as filters. The principle would be to use the SAW device only to send a wave of particular frequency through your hardware and filter all the other frequencies. Hence some of the current applications are as RF component in various telecommunications devices such as cell-phones, wireless devices, television. This is the

biggest market, which is already there. This particular product will improve performance and add additional features over existing market products.

According to Toshiba, a manufacture of SAW devices, one of the fastest growing segment in the market for electron Tubes and devices is SAW devices – cellular phone technology. ¹

SAW devices have become accepted technology in wireless communication devices. The imperative need in this technology is to reduce the size of these devices to make them more flexible and increase their applications. As well to serve the high data rate requirements of the user, future communication systems will require greater bandwidth. To support wideband applications such as LMDS, W-CDMA, 3G, W-WLL, and multimedia, manufactures are looking to develop new filter structures which improve performance while reducing both size and cost.

The worldwide SAW market is more than $1 billion. The US SAW market is more than $250 million (with US market value in parentheses):²

MILITARY RADAR ($5M) uses SAW to detect more, faster, and smaller targets in an environment of ever more sophisticated and powerful jamming and deception techniques.

MILITARY ELECTRONIC WARFARE ($10M) encompasses all those activities to disable hostile electronics and to protect against electronically controlled threats. SAW can provides the necessary sensitivity, selectivity, and identification capability.

MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS ($5M) systems use SAW to handle voice, video, or digital data signals at high rates while providing signal security and jam resistance.

COMMERCIAL COMMUNICATIONS ($100M) SAW applications include satellite, microwave links, cable TV, fiber optic, mobile digital radio, cellular base-stations, local area networks, and high definition TV.

CONSUMER COMMUNICATIONS ($100M) SAW applications in the US include cellular phones, pagers, ID tags, and wireless controls such as garage door openers and electronic automobile locks.

The international market is dominated by very low cost TV receiver, pager, and cellular telephone consumer applications, where both the markets and suppliers are primarily Asian. There are military applications, but as in the US, there is an overwhelming tendency to use national suppliers which exist in Germany, France, England, Japan, and Israel.²

UNPROVEN POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS

The principle can also be used in biotech applications such as biochemical sensors, biomedical devices, and so on which uses a lot of micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS)technology.

As for the final application of a uv-LED (light emitting device), this is still in research stage. This application is an optoelectronic application and totally different from the SAW device i just mentioned. But the material, which we are working on can be used both as a SAW device and an optoelectronic device. One doesn't relate to the other.

We plan to extend this technology to applications such as bio-chemical sensors and stuff.... because bio-technology is a hot and rapidly growing area. The exact role or application of the product we are not sure at present. What is known for sure is that the product can be a bio-chemical sensor.

OPTIONS TO BRING TO MARKET

2. Licensing ... like I said, we filed the patent through Rutgers. So, any kind of licensing will have to go through Rutgers. Some universities such as Stanford don't ask for any share or royalty from their technology, but some like, MIT, do ask for a share or royalty. I am not sure what is the stand of Rutgers on this. we, by ourselves, haven't taken any initiative in this regard ... .like approaching a lawyer or so on.

3. for the initial part, we could use the facilities at rutgers. We have a well established clean room at rutgers. It takes about 100 million to set up a clean room. So, yes, if we do go to a production we need to set up such a facility - merge with a company (get bought) which can offer this kind of facility or look for some kind of sponsor/VC. If the

prototype of the product has been established, then it takes about a year to set up the facility and another year to get a yield out of production