MEMSCAP MUMPs® Services Manufacture the Dies for Many Participants
to the Robocup Soccer Competition
MEMSCAP (Paris:MEMS), the leading provider of innovative solutions based on MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) technology, announced today it is the breeding ground for the future champion of the Robocup soccer competition. Using MUMPs® manufacturing and prototyping services, many participants to the Nanogram competition have manufactured their robotic structures for this very special soccer competition.
The Robocup championships that takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, brings together 1,700 robot researchers and 300 robot teams from 33 countries that confront each other on a 2.5mm square field of play. The goals measure 900 micrometers wide by 500 micrometers deep, while the robots (players) measure a few tens of micrometers to a few hundred micrometers in their largest dimension and have masses ranging from a few nanograms to a few hundred nanograms.
This contest of a nano-kind consist of three compulsory exercises, the 2 Millimeter Dash, where each microrobot must sprint across the playing field from one goal to the other, the Slalom Drill, where the path between goals is blocked by inanimate "defenders" that the micro-robot must avoid as it races between the goals, and the Ball-Handling Drill, which requires the micro-robot to dribble as many balls as possible into the goal within a 3-minute time period, while avoiding inanimate "defenders" in the field.
The successful manufacture of these fleets of the tiniest robots ever was made possible through MEMSCAP MUMPs® program, and especially PolyMUMPS.
“MUMPs is the US Naval Academy manufacturer for our team to the Robocup Competition”. “We have chosen MUMPs services because we wanted to have the best quality in order to build a reliable winning team with strong and tireless players” explains Professor Samara Firebaugh, from the US Naval Academy. “MEMSCAP was the obvious partner for the sophisticated processing facilities we needed.”
MUMPs® is the ultimate platform for proof-of-concept fabrication. The longest running and most renowned multi-user program for MEMS manufacturing in the world, MUMPs® uses standard yet diversified process technologies that serve universities, laboratories, companies and researchers. Its versatile possibilities adapt to endless features, devices, and applications. The service’s low cost allows researchers with the smallest budgets to realize their ideas.
“Behind this ‘sport’contest lies a bigger challenge for tomorrows lives improvement and preservation, and this why we were happy to contribute to building those robots teams” says states Ron Wages, General Manager of MEMSCAP custom products business unit.
About MEMSCAP
MEMSCAP is the leading provider of innovative micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)-based solutions. MEMSCAP standard and custom products and solutions include components, component designs (IP), manufacturing and related services. MEMSCAP customers include Fortune 500 businesses, major research institutes and universities. The company's shares are traded on the Eurolist of Euronext Paris S.A (ISIN: FR0010298620-MEMS), where MEMSCAP belongs to the Next Economy segment. More information on the company's products and services can be obtained at www.memscap.com.
About US Naval Academy
The mission of the United States Naval Academy is to develop midshipmen morally, mentally and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, honor, and loyalty in order to provide graduates who are dedicated to a career of naval service and have potential for future development in mind and character to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government. The overall curriculum supports the moral and mental preparation of midshipmen providing them with the skills and knowledge they will meet to be successful as junior officers in the United States Navy and Marine Corps.
About MUMPs®
The Multi User MEMS Processes, or MUMPs®, is the longest-running MEMS prototyping service in the industry, and the defacto standard process to support academic, government, and industrial research in MEMS. Fabricated out of the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina facility for fourteen years, the MUMPs® prototyping service has been operated by listed company MEMSCAP since November 2002. Originally developed as part of a MEMS infrastructure program, MUMPs has expanded over the years from one to four distinct multiple mask-level processes, adding thick metal, SOI, and CMOS-MEMS process to the polysilicon surface micromachining process. Nearly half a million MEMS devices have been shipped to over 1000 customers over the life of the MUMPs program. Visit www.memscap.com section MUMPs.