Market Opportunity

The proposed SHEMS will have immediate market in the aerospace, highway infrastructure, petrochemical and semiconductor manufacturing equipment industries.

The first application of SHEMS is to bonded repairs of aircraft. The military and civilian aerospace industries are turning to adhesive bond repair technology to meet the challenges of maintaing aging aircraft fleets and repairing modern structural materials. However, existing technology limits the use of adhesive bonding due to the lack of a reliable and easy NDE technique for the through life monitoring of adhesively bonded components. The SHEMS can address this problem by deploying sensors in and around an adhesive bond.

Key NDE market drivers for the aerospace industry are high replacement costs which require that aging equipment be kept in operation. Furthermore, the MEMS-based corrosion sensor platform will find applications in corrosion sensors for the semiconductor equipment, petrochemical, and automotive industries. In transportation, the need to monitor the aging highway infrastructure in a cost effective manner to meet regulatory safety requirements is an obvious application.

Analatom, Inc.'s marketing strategy includes the development of market opportunities with military and commercial manufacturers of aircraft products and services, petrochemical companies and semiconductor manufacturing equipment companies. Analatom has also filed for patents covering the key technologies involved. It is also worth noting that acceptance of SHEMS as a NDE technique for adhesive bonds will likely lead to a much greater use of adhesive bonding techniques in all market segments, and hence a rapidly expanding demand for SHEMS.

Analatom, Inc. has identified beta customers in several large market segments. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are potential beta customers with whom we are working closely during product development. CALTRANS (California Department of Transportation) has shown interest in the Analatom sensors as a cost effective method for monitoring the aging highway infrastructure. Applied Materials, the largest manufacturer of semiconductor manufacturing equipment has also expressed interest in Analatom sensors for detection of dry corrosion in a gaseous environment. Due to the sensors minute size and potential low cost, the sensors are a natural to embed in selected locations in semiconductor manufacturing equipment and in semiconductor fabrication facilities.