ABOUT COVENTOR
Coventor® is the leading supplier of software tools and technology used in the design and manufacture of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). Its solutions have been used for the past 15 years by most of the leading MEMS device makers in the world (11 of the top 15 as of the end of 2009) and are helping fuel robust growth in the MEMS industry.
The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina. It has development and sales offices in Cambridge, Mass (due to its roots at MIT); Silicon Valley, Ca; Paris, France And Tokyo, Japan.
Coventor’s software suite and supporting content allow engineers to efficiently simulate and analyze MEMS designs before they are committed to manufacturing, saving time, money and development resources. Its sophisticated 3D design tools support a wide range of the physics required in advanced MEMS, including the mechanical, electrical, piezoelectrical, optical, fluidic and electromagnetic domains, as well as package analysis. The company has built on this foundation of MEMS physics expertise to expand its product line to include solutions that allow the electronic circuitry and ICs that accompany MEMS in packaged MEMS-based products to be designed together. This requires integration with non-MEMS design methodologies and tools, i.e. EDA and System tools used by IC and electronics system designers.
HELPING MEMS “CROSS THE CHASM”
MEMS devices offer great potential for continuing the pace of miniaturization that began with Moore’s Law. They have already enabled great advances, from safer cars to digital projection, and are increasingly revolutionizing the way we interface with the latest multi-function consumer electronics. But MEMS design has, for too long, been confined to specialists who use an ad-hoc design methodology with little or no connection to electronic design environments.
The total market for MEMS is projected to grow by more than 40 percent from 2008 to 2012, from just over $7 billion worldwide to over $13 billion, according to market research firm Yole Development. With much of the industry growth expected to come from MEMS in consumer electronics, there is even more pressure to deliver increasingly capable MEMS in less time and at lower cost.
Separately and in combination, CoventorWare®, SEMulator3D® and MEMS+™ address the unique challenges of MEMS design automation: process flexibility, 3D effects, complex multi-physics, and MEMS/IC co-design. These tools have already enabled many organizations in the MEMS industry to be more efficient by shortening time to market and reducing development costs. The expansion of MEMS into consumer markets is driving increasing demand for Coventor’s products. On average, according to one analyst report, it takes 4 years of development and $45M in investment to bring a MEMS product to market. This is untenable in fast-paced, cost-sensitive consumer markets. Coventor’s strategy is to leverage its experience and expertise in MEMS and enhance the overall development ecosystem to enable engineers and companies that may not have deep MEMS expertise to efficiently develop integrated systems that contain MEMS functionality and devices.
