mCube Motion Sensors Enable the “Internet of Moving Things”

• World’s Smallest Motion Sensors: Small as a grain of sand
• mCube Advantage: Small form factor, single-chip, low power, high performance
• Huge Market Opportunity: Billions of moving ‘things’ connected to the Internet by 2020
• Proven Technology: More than 60 million mCube sensors shipped since 2012

SAN JOSE, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 25, 2014 — mCube, provider of the world’s smallest MEMS motion sensors, today announced it has closed a $37 million Series C financing round. Existing investors participating in the round include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, MediaTek, iD Ventures America, and DAG Ventures. New investors include Keytone Ventures, SK Telecom (China) Ventures and Korea Investment Partners. mCube plans to use the new funds to further accelerate its growth and expand its line of motion sensors.

By 2020, analysts predict more than 50 billion¹ devices will be connected to the Internet and a large percentage of those devices will be in motion. From smartphones and tablets, to smart clothing and wearables, mCube is enabling a new era called the “Internet of Moving Things (IoMT)” where the movement and context of everyday objects and devices can be measured, monitored and analyzed, generating valuable data and insights that will transform consumer experiences.

“mCube is well positioned with the world’s smallest MEMS motion sensors to enable this high-growth new market we refer to as the Internet of Moving Things,” said Ben Lee, president and CEO, mCube, Inc. “Virtually anything in motion can benefit from mCube’s high-performance and low-power sensors. This latest financing round will enable mCube to accelerate its growth and develop more motion sensor products to capitalize on this massive IoMT market opportunity.”

Sensors in Everything

Motion sensors are key components in consumer, mobile and wearable devices, including smartphones and tablets that typically incorporate multiple MEMS accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetic sensors. Through mCube innovations, the applicability of these sensors can be expanded to virtually anything that moves. Example use cases include:

• Smartphones and tablets for 3D gaming, indoor navigation and augmented reality applications;
• Smart watches, wearable devices and smart clothing that can detect how far you walked or ran, the rate at which you moved, and how many calories you burned;
• Automotive or commercial trucking where motion sensors can be connected to video cameras in rear-view mirrors to better assess the cause of an accident and driving conditions;
• Shipping, where motion sensors can be embedded directly onto packages to record jarring motions or accidents in order to determine when and how contents were damaged;
• Sensor tags to monitor farm animals for abnormal activity, patterns of grazing, potential illness and herd behavior.

The Next Generation of MEMS Sensors

While MEMS sensors have been used in industrial, automotive and even printer applications for many years, these first generation solutions are expensive and complex to manufacture, and are produced using proprietary manufacturing processes. Packaged in large multi-chip modules, first generation motion sensors require higher power and often have reduced reliability due to the packaging process. With the advent of smartphones and gesture-controlled gaming, second generation MEMS sensors have emerged, featuring smaller size and lower power. These second generation devices are still manufactured on proprietary processes and feature discrete products packaged with stacked die. As a result, they continue to be relatively large and consume considerable power.

In contrast, mCube’s monolithic single-chip MEMS design approach represents the next generation of sensors – very small, single-chip MEMS+ASIC devices that are cost effective, consume low power, and feature very high performance. These advancements make it possible to place one or more motion sensors onto nearly any object or device. In some cases, the single-chip MEMS motion sensor silicon can be attached directly onto a printed circuit board without requiring chip packaging, saving real estate and reducing height to enable thinner and smaller system designs.

As the first company to integrate a MEMS sensor with the ASIC onto a single die using standard CMOS process, mCube is delivering this next generation of motion sensors by making them simple to manufacture and easy to design into a broad range of applications. mCube motion sensors have already been adopted in a range of smartphone and tablet reference designs and are featured on the approved vendor lists of leading handset chipset partners.