Department of Engineering / News / Engineering spin-off Cambridge CMOS Sensors acquired by ams

Department of Engineering

Engineering spin-off Cambridge CMOS Sensors acquired by ams

Engineering spin-off Cambridge CMOS Sensors acquired by ams

Leading worldwide manufacturer of high performance sensor and analog solutions ams has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of the shares in Cambridge CMOS Sensors Ltd (CCMOSS), a spin-off company of the Department of Engineering. 

Our technology has great advantages in terms of form factor, power consumption and reliability, and can be deployed both in gas sensing as well as infra-red markets.

Florin Udrea

CMOSS was spun out from the Department’s Electrical Engineering Division, a collaboration between Professor Florin Udrea, now Professor of Semiconductor Engineering; Professor Bill Milne, now emeritus staff in the Department; and Professor Julian Gardner of the University of Warwick. CCMOSS has built an outstanding expertise in micro hotplate design and manufacturing for gas and infrared sensing over more than 20 years. Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialisation arm of the University of Cambridge, has supported CCMOSS throughout its development with seed funding and further investment from Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds and the University of Cambridge Enterprise Fund.

Professor Udrea, Chief Technology Officer and Founder of CCMOSS, said: “This is a very exciting opportunity for us to work with ams, a leader in environmental sensing business. Our technology has great advantages in terms of form factor, power consumption and reliability, and can be deployed both in gas sensing as well as infra-red markets. The technology originated from the High Voltage Microelectronics and Sensors lab at the University of Cambridge with collaboration on IP transfer from Warwick University. Particularly we are grateful to Cambridge Enterprise, our first investor, for their belief in our innovation, team and the tremendous business opportunities.”

Professor Udrea holds more than 70 patents and was recognised through the award of the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal in 2012. In 2015 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. His pioneering and truly innovative research has been translated into direct engineering application in the areas of electronic devices for electrical power/energy control and gas sensing.

The company’s micro hotplates are used in gas sensors for volume applications in the automotive, industrial, medical and consumer markets. Their deep expertise in this area is highly synergetic with ams’s technology leadership in MOX gas sensing materials to detect gases like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and volatile organic compounds. CCMOSS manufactures MEMS structures on wafers to enable the creation of complete monolithically integrated sensors. This makes CCMOSS solutions highly cost-efficient, as well as providing significant advantages over competing technologies including low power consumption, small footprint and the ability to integrate additional sensor modalities such as relative humidity, temperature, and pressure.


Florin Udrea

In addition, CCMOSS commands an industry-leading portfolio of infrared technology comprising high performance IR radiation sources and detectors for sensor applications. Highly complementary to ams’s spectral sensing strategy for next generation optical sensor technologies, CCMOSS’s IR sensing is based on the same monolithic CMOS structures as for gas sensing, enabling miniaturised implementations and efficient integration with other on-chip functions. Applications include CO2 gas sensing and human presence detection and will extend into spectroscopic identification of organic materials.

CCMOSS’s corporate headquarters are located in Cambridge, UK, and the company has 33 employees. The Cambridge region has become a centre of innovation for sensor technologies globally so ams values the ability to gain direct access to this attractive ecosystem going forward.

Alexander Everke, CEO of ams, said: “The addition of CCMOSS makes ams the clear leader in gas and infrared sensor technology worldwide, and completes ams’ portfolio of products and technologies for the environmental sensor market. This highly strategic acquisition is therefore another key step in making ams the world’s leading provider of sensor solutions for consumer, automotive, industrial, and medical applications.”

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