MEMS devices can be used for building various sensors and actuators. In particular, micro-resonators used in frequency filtering, bio and gas sensing, pressure sensing, acceleration detection and many other applications. In recent years, MEMS devices have also been used as the building blocks of energy-efficient electromechanical microcomputers. Designs with re-programmable logic gates and complex digital blocks such as adders and data converters using micro-electromechanical resonators have been explored and implemented.
In particular, since the beginning of 2017, Prof. Hossein Fariborzi, Sally Ahmed, Ren Li and Xuecui Zou, who form part of the Integrated Circuits and Systems Group, have been competing in the international MEMS Design Contest organized by the Cadence Academic Network, X-FAB, Coventor and Reutlingen University. On May 8 at the final awards ceremony at CDNLive EMEA 2018 in Munich, the KAUST team won second place for their project entitled "MEMS Resonator for Oscillator, Tunable Filter and Re-Programmable Logic Applications."