ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,416,534, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to NextInput Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.).
"Slotted MEMS force sensor" was invented by Mehrnaz Rouhi Youssefi (San Francisco) and Julius Minglin Tsai (San Jose, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Described herein is a MEMS force sensor with stress concentration design. The stress concentration can be performed by providing slots, whether through or blind, and/or selective thinning of the substrate. The MEMS force sensor is in chip scale package with solder bumps or metal pillars and there are sensing elements formed on the sensor substrate at the stress concentrate area. The stress concentrat...