SensorDynamics was a European semiconductor and

MEMS MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) is the technology of microscopic devices incorporating both electronic and moving parts. MEMS are made up of components between 1 and 100 micrometres in size (i.e., 0.001 to 0.1 mm), and MEMS devices ...

company specialized in developing and manufacturing high-volume

micro Micro may refer to: Measurement * micro- (μ), a metric prefix denoting a factor of 10−6 Places * Micro, North Carolina, town in U.S. People * DJ Micro, (born Michael Marsicano) an American trance DJ and producer * Chii Tomiya (都宮 � ...

- and

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...

sensor A sensor is often defined as a device that receives and responds to a signal or stimulus. The stimulus is the quantity, property, or condition that is sensed and converted into electrical signal. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a devi ...

products for applications in automotive, industry and high-end consumer sectors. The company was acquired by

Maxim Integrated Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., was an American semiconductor company that designed, manufactured, and sold analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for the automotive, industrial, communications, consumer, and computing markets. Maxim's pr ...

in 2011 for $164 million. SensorDynamics developed and produced custom-made designs and standard components for use in vehicle stabilization, occupant protection, navigation systems,

keyless go A smart key is a vehicular passive entry system developed by Siemens in 1995 and introduced by Mercedes-Benz under the name "Keyless-Go" in 1998 on the W220 Mercedes-Benz S-Class (W220), S-Class, after the design patent was filed by Daimler-Benz o ...

systems and autonomous energy generators for wireless and battery free controllers for industrial, automotive and high-end consumer application. With its headquarters in

Graz Graz () is the capital of the Austrian Federal states of Austria, federal state of Styria and the List of cities and towns in Austria, second-largest city in Austria, after Vienna. On 1 January 2025, Graz had a population of 306,068 (343,461 inc ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, SensorDynamics had offices in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and a worldwide sales and distribution network. The company employed about 130 people in 2011.

History

SensorDynamics was founded in 2003 by Herbert Gartner, Hubertus Christ, Jürgen Tittel and Volker Kempe. Financed by national and international Venture Capital investors the company successfully closed four equity rounds in 2004, 2007, 2009 and 2011. In 2005 SensorDynamics was ranked under the top 100 European high tech companies by Tornado Insider and awarded the Fast Forward Award 2005 in Austria. From the beginning the Company strongly cooperated with the Institute of Silicon Technology

Fraunhofer Society The Fraunhofer Society () is a German publicly-owned research organization with 76institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science (as opposed to the Max Planck Society, which works primarily on Basic re ...

Itzehoe Itzehoe (; ) is a town in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. As the capital of the district Steinburg, Itzehoe is located on the Stör, a navigable tributary of the Elbe, 51 km (31.7 mi) northwest of Hamburg and 24 km (14.9&nb ...

and expanded this cooperation with long-term agreements in 2007. In October 2007 SensorDynamics started a deep cooperation with US consumer electronics supplie
Kionix
In August 2008 EnOcean and SensorDynamics announced the launch world's first

energy harvesting Energy harvesting (EH) – also known as power harvesting, energy scavenging, or ambient power – is the process by which energy is derived from external sources (e.g., solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, Osmotic power, salinity gradients, ...

system on chip SOC product. In March 2009 SensorDynamics launched

gyroscopes for industrial, medical and consumer applications. In November 200
Chipworks
selected SensorDynamics'

product SD755 as product of the year 2009. In November 2010 SensorDynamics announced XY angular rate and an XYZ angular rate devices in 6x6x1.8 mm3 QFN40-packages. In December 2010 SensorDynamics announced worldwide's first fully characterized and specified 6 x 6 x 1.2 mm 6DoF IMU (six degrees of freedom inertial measurement unit) including evaluation boards. In July 2011 SensorDynamics was acquired by

, a recognized leader in analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products.

, headquartered in San Jose, California, is in Fortune 1000, and is included in the

NASDAQ-100 The Nasdaq-100 (NDX) is a stock market index made up of equity securities issued by 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. It is a modified capitalization-weighted index. The stocks' weights in the inde ...

, the

Russell 1000 The Russell 1000 Index is a U.S. stock market index that tracks the highest-ranking 1,000 stocks in the Russell 3000 Index, which represent about 93% of the total market capitalization of that index. , the stocks of the Russell 1000 Index had ...

, and

MSCI MSCI Inc. (formerly Morgan Stanley Capital International) is an American finance company headquartered in New York City. MSCI is a global provider of equity, fixed income, real estate indices, multi-asset portfolio analysis tools, ESG and ...

USA indices. Maxim was paying $164 million to acquire SensorDynamics.

Product portfolio

SensorDynamics focused on three product groups, for each of which the company had created a development platform to guarantee a maximum re-use of silicon proven analogue and digital IPs. This was the basis for both application-specific developments and adaptations of existing products.

Inertial microsensor systems

SensorDynamics had developed and produced world's first

combo sensors in combining

motion sensors ( angular rate and/or acceleration) with sophisticated analogue-digital electronics (ASIC) in micro packages to form a large-scale of integrated micro sensor system. Applications included electronic stabilization systems, rollover detection and navigation sets for ’blind reckoning’ without

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

support.

Intelligent sensor interface circuits

SensorDynamics had a wealth of expertise in the development and manufacturing of intelligent electronic signal conditioning circuitry of macro sensors such as core and planar coils,

resistor A resistor is a passive two-terminal electronic component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element. In electronic circuits, resistors are used to reduce current flow, adjust signal levels, to divide voltages, bias active e ...

s, capacitive and magneto resistive sensors. Cooperation with the customer produces application-specific sensor systems that combined macro sensors and electronic signal conditioning at module level.

Wireless sensors

Examples of wireless sensors were to be found in ‘

Keyless go A smart key is a vehicular passive entry system developed by Siemens in 1995 and introduced by Mercedes-Benz under the name "Keyless-Go" in 1998 on the W220 Mercedes-Benz S-Class (W220), S-Class, after the design patent was filed by Daimler-Benz o ...

’ or tyre pressure systems. However,

and battery-less sensor systems are increasingly adopted in industrial applications; especially automation such as smart LF/ RF applications.

Energy harvesting Energy harvesting (EH) – also known as power harvesting, energy scavenging, or ambient power – is the process by which energy is derived from external sources (e.g., solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, Osmotic power, salinity gradients, ...

, in other words powering devices from the energy produced by movement, heat or light, was enabled by SensorDynamics' system on chip SOC products. Sensor systems that incorporated energy use optimization management – integrated processing of sensor signals through to the transmission of control signals at radio frequencies – was a special discipline of SensorDynamics.

Key people

* Herbert Gartner (Founder,

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

04/2003 - 09/2003, CFO 09/2003 - 03/2012) * Hubertus Christ (Founder,

09/2003 - 03/2012) * Volker Kempe (Founder) * Jürgen Tittel (Founder)

Management and team

The company had about 130 employees world-wide when it was acquired by

in July 2011. Their key qualifications included: extensive experience in sensor system development,

and

technology, testing and

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

as well as deep knowledge of the

automotive electronics Automotive electronics are electronic systems used in vehicles, including engine management, ignition, radio, carputers, telematics, in-car entertainment systems, and others. Ignition, engine and transmission electronics are also found in tru ...

market and strong applications expertise. SensorDynamics as a company had been operational as such since 2003, although the nucleus of the team worked together in prior companies since the 1990s.

Quality and environmental management

As SensorDynamics was also providing sensitive integrated products and systems to the automotive market, the quality and environmental management system was based on the ISO/TS16949 and

ISO 14001 The ISO 14000 family is a set of international standards for Natural environment, environment management systems. It was developed in March 1996 by International Organization for Standardization. The goal of these standards is to help organizations ...

standard. SensorDynamics satisfied all automotive quality requirements (i.e. ISO/TS16949,

, IEC61508,

ISO 26262 ISO 26262, titled "Road vehicles – Functional safety", is an international standard for functional safety of electrical and/or electronic systems that are installed in serial production road vehicles (excluding mopeds), defined by the Intern ...

, AEC Q100).

Key investors

I4G Investment GmbH
(2003 - 2011);
Siemens Venture Capital
(2004 - 2011);
DEWB
(2004 - 2011);
Steirische Beteiligungsfinanzierungsgesellschaft mbH
(2004 -2011);
FIDURA Private Equity Fonds
(2007 - 2011);
PONTIS Capital
(2007 -2011);
Global Equity Partners
(2004 - 2009);
Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH
(2003 - 2011);
Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)
(2004 - today);

References

Additional References

BusinessWeek

SensorDynamics Launches Gyroscope for Industrial, Medical and Consumer Applications

* [http://www.isit.fraunhofer.de/de/Aktuelles/20050916_isit_und_sd_setzen_neue_massstaebe.html Das Fraunhofer ISIT und die SensorDynamics AG setzen bei der Entwicklung und Fertigung komplexer Mikrosysteme neue Maßstäbe]
ISIT präsentiert auf der Hannover Messe: Intelligente Bewegungssensorik für die Automobilindustrie
{{DEFAULTSORT:SensorDynamics Semiconductor companies of Austria Fabless semiconductor companies 2011 mergers and acquisitions