EUROPRACTICE Stimulation Programme for first users of chip design in MEMS or Si-Photonics technologies
The use of MEMS will become even more important in the near future as new applications such as healthcare, automotive and internet of things (IoT) require more and more sensor functionality; consequently. industry will need more experienced MEMS designers. Through EUROPRACTICE and its more than 500 European member universities, the European Commission stimulates European universities to train the students of today in MEMS / photonics design in order to deliver the designers of tomorrow.

As part of the EUROPRACTICE2016 project funded by the European Commission, a Stimulation Action has been defined. providing the opportunity for five European universities to fabricate, free of charge, a MEMS sensor prototype on a Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) run using any MUMPs technologies from the MEMSCAP foundry.


The Department of Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics at the University of Malta, a EUROPRACTICE member, applied for this Stimulation Action to fabricate a novel sub-millimetre scale MEMS scanning mirror intended for mobile pico-projector and automotive LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) applications. The University of Malta was one of the five universities to be successfully selected for the fabrication of the prototype by using the SOIMUMPS process. The micro-mirror design will be submitted by April 2018 and is part of Ph.D. research being carried out by Ing. Russell Farrugia, Research Support Officer at the Department of Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics.
