How much time and money should a company budget to take a product from prototype to volume production?
Raj Gupta: The amount of time and money spent varies as dramatically as the type of devices being manufactured. Some devices can be as trivial as shallow etched features in glass; others can be multi-wafer structures that involve fusion bonding of electronics with micromechanical parts and specialized needs for dicing and hermeticity. While the former may be a 2-step mask process, the latter could be a 35-mask process. The ease of transition depends heavily on the commonality of the toolsets and the level of sophistication and experience of the engineers involved. Also, many fabs will not get involved if the process does not bring in a certain minimum amount of revenue independent of complexity involved in the process. Amounts like $1-2M per year at a mid-to-high volume fab during development phase for single-chip MEMS transducer with electronics is not unrealistic. MEMS Investor Journal: What are the main cost components of the overall $1-2 million annual cost? Raj Gupta: Process qual
