Potential NASA Commercial Applications: Due to the nature of batch fabrication process of SMA, the cost could drop dramatically. The typical cost to manufacture a 6 inch wafer using a mature CMOS (pure electronic) process is approximately $10K per wafer. Additional processes to bond the BSB and electronic circuits will add an additional $10K. After factoring in other possible costs, as well as a 100% makeup in the price, each wafer should cost no more than $50K. Now, we know that the total resolution of this 6inch wafer will be 1000X1000, i.e. one million elements. Therefore, the cost per element is $0.05. We compare with currently available 6 inch diameter deformable mirrors with actuators in the order of 10X10 elements, the total cost per device will be $100K because each actuator cost $1K typically to perform both tip-tilt and piston motion. Considering the price per actuators drop from $1K to $0.05 (5 orders of magnitude) due to MEMS batch fabrication process, it seems reasonable that the development of MEMS will open up more potential applications in both commercial and military fields which were previously impossible to consider due to the high-cost of deformable mirrors.
More »