Dr. Rosalind Wynne Earns PA Manufacturing Grant

Supported by Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development, the Manufacturing PA initiative is designed to spur new technologies and processes in the manufacturing sector by uniting graduate and undergraduate students and their faculty advisors with industry partners. In 2020, Dr. Rosalind Wynne's research was awarded one of the program's several grants.

Manufacturing Process, Assembly and System-Yield Optimization for Microelectromechanical-Systems Devices

Dr. Rosalind Wynne, associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Avo Photonics, Inc., a photonics-based technology company that manufactures optoelectronic solutions and products, were awarded $38,707 to optimize MEMS fabrication, assembly and packaging.

The global market outlook for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)—micrometer-scale devices that integrate optical, electrical and mechanical elements—are predicted to grow from $48.74 billion in 2018 to $122.83 billion by 2026. This technology impacts smart consumer electronics including wearable devices like Apple watches, IoT Amazon Alexa towers and collision avoidance sensors in the automotive sector. Lack of standardized fabrication processes in these devices, however, leads to reduced product performance and life spans.

This project will take advantage of the existing decade-long partnership Dr. Wynne has established with Avo Photonics President Dr. Joseph Dallas ’85 CLAS and CFO Kim Wheeler ’88 VSB. Successful process refinement will bolster Avo market share to support its anticipated 25% workforce expansion in the next few years, generating more Philadelphia jobs while preparing graduate students to join the PA manufacturing workforce.

This research will be conducted in Dr. Wynne’s Laboratory for Lightwave Devices under the auspices of Villanova’s Center for Advanced Communications.