Summary

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Summary

Flavius Pop (startup founder and research professor at Northeastern/Oakland) met with Paul Carey (SEMI Director) to learn about the MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress (MSCC) in Boston (April 1-2). The conversation covered MSCC logistics, Flavius's startup (Abnito/Industrial Charm — an IoT-based operator knowledge capture system for predictive maintenance), and mutual industry connections. Paul encouraged Flavius to attend MSCC and offered to connect him with relevant industry contacts.

Key points

• Paul explained MSCC is an invite-only executive event (~200 companies) focused on industry trends, not deep technical content; two events per year (MSCC and MSTC in September at SEMI HQ)
• MSCC Boston schedule: reception April 31st, full day April 1st (including awards dinner), half day April 2nd (PNT session + Startup Showcase "Shark Tank" format with 3 VCs)
• Flavius described his startup: IoT nodes ("Industrial Charm") that let factory operators record voice notes correlated with sensor data, building a proprietary knowledge base for predictive maintenance — with cloud and fully on-premise/edge deployment options
• Paul shared directly relevant experience: built a similar Excel-based "expert system" at InnovaFlex Foundry (~12 years ago) that technicians still use today for tool interaction logging; validated Flavius's concept strongly
• Flavius is meeting KLA next week, has Bosch partnership, and Marcellino (Bosch) is an advisor at his startup
• Paul noted MSCC is moving beyond pure MEMS sensor companies toward systems integrators and sensor users — Flavius's company fits as a sensor customer/user
• Paul offered a 15% discount code for MSCC registration: MSDC26Guest15
• SEMI membership for startups costs ~$1,000/year; contact is Eric Rude (Americas Membership Director)
• David Horsley (Northeastern) wants MSCC attendees to visit Northeastern's poster session the afternoon of April 2nd

Decisions

• Flavius intends to sign up for MSCC and SEMI membership
• Paul will promote Northeastern's April 2nd poster session to MSCC attendees (via slide on stage and pre-event communication)

Action items

• Flavius - Sign up for SEMI membership (contact Eric Rude); use discount code MSDC26Guest15 for MSCC registration
• Paul - Connect Flavius with Rick Capel (and potentially Michael Johnson) at InnovaFlex Foundry to discuss the expert system use case
• Paul - Contact registered MSCC attendees to encourage them to attend Northeastern's April 2nd poster session
• Flavius - Share company website with Paul (already put in chat during call)

Follow-ups / open questions

• Whether Flavius can attend MSCC on April 2nd given his Northeastern commitments that day (he said his schedule is full)
• Whether Flavius's startup qualifies/should apply for the MSCC Startup Showcase
• Whether InnovaFlex's existing expert system data could be a pilot use case for Abnito
• Nvidia innovation program application outcome (Flavius already applied)
• Timing: can Flavius complete SEMI membership in time to get member pricing for MSCC?

Transcript

Hello. Hi, sorry for the delay.

No problem. How are you? I'm doing well. So you were there last week, huh?

Yes, yes, I was there. I didn't get the chance to talk to you directly, but I talked with your colleagues, the other organizers.

Yeah, sorry I missed you. It was a busy couple of days. I know, I know.

It was a great workshop, yeah. I talked to some interesting companies. Yeah.

Yeah. So you reached out. Are you interested in beingGoing to MSCC. Or you just want to know more about...

Yes. Are you still there? Oh yeah, can you hear me?

You froze for a sec.

Okay, I'm back here. All right. Yeah. So I'm interested in the I guess I don't remember the acronym, but yes, the amendments and censors. Executive Congress. MSCC. Right. So, Does this come with the same kind of requirements and subscription as the semi-regular association or is this different?

I'm not sure I understand your question. You just want to know more about it or do you want to know how to register?

Yeah, and what's the subscription and all that.

Okay, I can put... the website link Into the chat. And then we can... Cheers. Okay, got it.

Yeah, so I just put it in the chat. Okay.

Okay, so MSCC... is Is our executive congress president? Um, The MEN's Incensors Industry Group is about over 200 companies. that are also semi members that are part of the sensor supply chain. And this executive Congress is our executive where people come from all the big sensor companies to to get together and talk about the industry. We have a committee that helps design the topics and reach out for the speakers.

So this is an invite only to speak at. And it's also, it's not meant to be technical in the sense of the latest technologies, unless it's a disruptive technology, it's more intended to be about what's going on in the industry, what are the big trends that are being seen, you know, keynotes, address, hot topics, in the industry. This group. Traditionally has been very Memsy, meaning microelectromechanical systems.

I think that was, you have a background in MEMS, I saw.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a MEMS guy. Yeah, I used to work on PMATs, piezoelectric micro-emissions. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, so, you know, we've had presentations on PMATs, We actually have two events a year. This is the executive one. The other one's called the Medicine Sensors Technical Congress. And MSTC will... probably be in September at semi HQ, the same place you went last week. Okay. Okay. And that's more, you know, we focus on the technology and this year we'll probably, it'll probably be similar, similar to last week in the sense we'll pick some hot topic.

You know, sensors, you know, is the eyes and ears of AI or something. And then just all the talks will be on that. Yeah. All right, so--Yeah, so, Yes, go ahead.

So for this and for this executive congress, I'll be in Boston one, two, three April. So but it's I have kind of a full. Oh, wait.

Northeastern, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So I I am currently so. Maybe I'll give you some context. So I was a PhD student long time ago at Northeaster in Boston and But then I came here to the Bay. I worked at Apple for four years in a research group and then left about a year ago to do two things. One is to get an appointment as a professor back to Northeastern as a research professor here in the Bay Area, though, in the Oakland campus. I don't know if you're aware of that campus.

David Horsley. Yeah, I know David Horsley.

So I work for David, basically, at Northeastern. OK, so I work with him very closely.

You guys are having something on April 2nd?

Yes, that's why I'm going to Boston. Yes, for that, basically, the institute we are part of has an industry, has their industry partners, and that's basically our executive day where all the industry partners come in and we talk. Yeah.

Yeah. And I know that Zhu Gao from A*STAR is giving a talk, but she's doing it remotely.

I know she came to Boston maybe a month ago already, so she's not coming back again from Singapore.

Yeah, I actually talked to her and she said, no, no, I'm not. Maybe it was an email. She was an emerging leader in MSIG a couple of years ago and I got to know her. She visited the Bay Area IEDM. This is where I live in the Bay Area. And I brought her Rosati's. Have you ever been to Rosati's? No. The beer garden in Porto Valley?

No, I haven't been to Rosati's.

Yeah.

I'm from Italy originally.

Yeah, so, Yeah, you might want to put this on to I Need to Visit because... Rosatis, okay.

Yeah. Is that in Palo Alto?

No, where is it? It's in Portola Valley, I guess. Portola Valley. Okay, I'll put that down.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It's called the Alpine Beer Garden. Yeah.

Oh, yes. I think I've been. Yeah, the Alpine Inn. Yes, yes.

I've been there at the beer garden yes I did some hikes with Stanford people yeah yeah so so yeah I actually grew up two miles from there so I used to go there as a kid and um the new version of Rosati's is much nicer than the one I had as a kid. It was a burger joint really.

I mean it's beautiful there. I really love that area and I mean I love the South Bay area in general because of all the hikes and nature. That's why I don't live in San Francisco. I'm in Sunnyvale.

Yeah I live next door in Mountain View. Yeah so anyway I met Zhu Gao She came to IDM and then I brought her to Rosati's on because IDM is in December and it was like one of these not super warm days went to Rosati's. She loved it. Yeah. So we've been we've been friends ever since she spoke at MSDC a couple of years ago and Yeah, one of my government council members is, I think, her boss. Anyway, so...

Yeah, that's good. I guess we've been living around this world for a while, but I never met you directly. Like with Zouyao, I met at the workshop that also they've organized for startups in Singapore. So I was at that. With Zouyao, we met many times at conference while I was a PhD student and she was a PhD student. Okay. We know each other for many years and now we collaborate quite closely because We signed this MOU with memorandum of understanding with A*STAR.

So we collaborated with them. We just recently sent to Northeastern a tape out with them with their lab infab. facility with ST, right? So close collaboration with them.

Yeah. Okay. So you're going to be, so our event is, We have kind of a fun taking pictures of the Freedom Trail in Boston with people that want to get it together the afternoon before. We always, that's a tradition at MSCC, we do something fun. And so we're just going to go from the hotel to Kensington Station, I guess, and form teams and everybody's going to take pictures and then we'll have a team that is announced as the winner at our awards ceremony.

or awards dinner that's the April 1st on the night. And I know you guys, so Horsley and I have written a couple of emails and he wants me to encourage people from MSCC to go to Northeastern to watch the poster session because MSCC ends on the 2nd at noon. I then have a governing council meeting until 2 and then you know, they said, hey, if you could get people to you know, figure out how to get over to Northeastern.

We have a poster session that afternoon, which we'd like people to invite. So, So I talked to him about that. David himself, I don't think he's, I've seen his name. as registered. It'd be nice if somebody, if you or somebody from the Northeastern contingent showed up and you have your startup too. And I think it would be really, really good. We have a reception on the 31st. We have a full day on the 1st.

And then if you're busy on the 2nd, what you're going to miss is, you know, we have a PMT sessionYeah. which is something I... I'm obligated to throw in there because we run an R&D group. I'm like a contract monitor. I work with ARL to do positioning, navigation, and timing R&D projects. And so we always have a session at our events as part of our gating. getting the word out in the community. So it's a PNT one.

I could... Yeah, that's okay to miss. We also have The... Startup Showcase. Yeah, I guess you guys could be candidate for there. That's usually fun because we have, well, we have a guy named Baruz Abdi, who I guess is the guy that he sold TDK to. Sorry, he sold it to Vincennes. So he's going to give a talk and then we have three VCs who are going to listen to three startups. And that's always a fun session because the VCs don't get much time to pitch.

which is probably kind of realistic. And then the VCs ask questions and then the VCs vote and the audience votes. And we find out who did the best job. It's like Shark Tank. It's a shark tank.

Yeah, I'm calling it the Boston strong startup presentation.

I see Zen Yun from Northeastern. He's there. He was in my lab with Matteo Rinaldi. Like Zepser Technologies?

Yeah, I met Matteo. I don't know Zen Yun.

Matteo was my advisor during my PhD.

Okay, so I met Matteo. So I know there's this contingent at Northeastern In Boston, I know there's a contingent in Oakland because I know Horsley. Horsley and his wife are very involved in our men's and censors next gen, which we had six months ago at. Semi HQ. But I haven't seen him sign up. So anyway, it would be great if somebody from Northeastern could come and hang out. Also, I will... I'll let the people that have Signed up Actually, maybe in my...

At some point, I'm on stage a couple of times, I can... show a slide of what you guys are doing. and encourage people to do that. But I don't want to wait until they're there. I probably should contact the people who've registered and let them know. So Dave did send me something.

Oh yeah, he sent you the material.

Okay, that's perfect. Yeah, he sent me the material. Okay, good, good. Um...

Okay, let me then besides that, let me give you a bit of context of what I do at my startup.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, so...

We are trying to do a bit of predictive maintenance but with a different twist on it. Most people just look at sensor data. What we are trying to do is to accumulate knowledge from operators. So we are designing small devices like IoT nodes that we can put in premise on different machines. For example, now we work with machine shops here locally in the Bay Area where operators can just press a button and take an audio note, just like a scribe.

You know all those apps that we have nowadays to transcribe meetings? This will be that, but for the industry.

Wait, say that again? So they push a button and then what happens?

They record some event that has happened. So maybe they talk to it.

They talk to it. Yeah.

Okay. So it has a microphone on it.

It has a microphone. And then it has also an accelerator because the idea is to correlate, kind of label maybe, and correlate what the operator has observed from their knowledge and their intuition to with the sensor data. Okay. So this could be a standalone voice only where you accumulate knowledge from the operator of things going on with your machine. And in that operators can put stuff like daily routine and maintenance they have to do or weekly, bi-weekly, not just like events that happen because those are more rare.

So ideally, with all this knowledge that is accumulated, then the factory can reuse this knowledge in the future. For example, for training new people, or if something similar happens again, that they could just chat quickly with their factory with one of those chat assistants, but on their own knowledge of the factory. Like it's not some external knowledge or some external model that is being used.

It's knowledge that they keep accumulating. So it's a very simple idea. from the point of view of the hardware but then all is going to be built on the on the on the web platform And we offer two versions of this. One is a version where we host the data in a cloud, in our platform, and one where it's deployed on the edge fully so data don't go in, don't go out. And that's for sensitive customers like semiconductor probably like in the workshop last week all I heard is like we don't want like a fly to go out of the building or inside.

Which makes sense.

So we are excited about that actually because I work in the clean rooms myself a long time so I know that machine break all the time. Remember recipes is hard. Remember how to use the machine is hard. So it's always good to have a knowledge base. So that's how my idea started initially. And then I'm really passionate about edge computing. I did that at Apple for quite a while and doing research on that broader area.

Of course, we cannot say we did at Apple. Actually from your workshop, I got in contact with KLA, so I'm going to meet them next week to kind of talk about that. They are interested in some other type of sensors that we don't support right now, but we are always interested in adding more sensors to the little box that we have there.

For me, in the ideal scenario, I'll put a PMUT there one day, but let's follow the customer first.

Yeah, PMUT. I've seen PMUT arrays where you have haptic fields like you're touching something. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to make a comment on what you're doing. So I have a... background before I worked for Semi, I worked for a company that it was called The Picks. It's now changed its name to InnovaFlex Foundry. And I was, when it was in Palo Alto, I was in charge of all the process engineers, the equipment engineers, and the maintenance techs.

So it was kind of a strange thing where we had everybody managed by one person, which was myself. And one of the things I did It was way back, it was over 10 years ago, I created an Excel spreadsheet that basically had every time a maintenance guy or an engineer had an interaction with a tool, like on a PM or a broker, whatever, I created a macro-based spreadsheet where they would hit a button and it would create a new line at the top of a table and then they would fill in what happened.

And it would be like CBD1, Chamber D, RF power.

Yeah, so see, that's what I want to automate.

So I called it an expert system. And I was thinking last week when I heard all these predictive maintenance people, all they would have to do for this company, because they still use my spreadsheet. I haven't been there for six years, is take that spreadsheet, feed it into a large language model, and you got the whole freaking thing. Yeah. Right already. So, yeah. So what you're doing is you're saying, yeah, you know, hey, we can make that a little bit easier.

I was never, I wanted to make it as easy because, I don't know, you said you work in clean rooms. maintenance technicians are not the easiest people to work with in general.

Yeah, that's true in other areas too, in other factories.

Yeah, so getting what I called, I called it an expert system, so they could easily, I mean, literally, if something went down on, you know, etch two, saver A, they can triangulate within 10 seconds when they open that file. Because they can sort for H2, they can sort for chamber A, And then they could look at everything that's happened in that chamber. And actually since 2010, they have everything.

That would be interesting, actually, because... Also, once we accumulate enough knowledge, we want to train our models and internally for that, like specific models for your company, not something that we use with somebody else. Right. Yeah. But this could give a good heads up.

Yeah.

So all I need to do, what I should do, I have an older version of this file, but I I have. I still have. people that I know and I could ask them for the latest version. And what would be interesting for you, I think, is this is actually... so useful, this file that has been in use essentially for 12 years. Wow. Okay. And it's really fast to triangulate. Before that, they would send out emails. This is what I did on my shift.

Yeah, emails, we discovered, was a horrible way to figure out anything. And so we created this expert system. And I think any framework of what you guys are proposing There's got to be people at companies, if they're not doing this, this was the most useful thing and they still use it. Wow.

I'm glad to hear that from you. This is a really interesting conversation.

Do you think you could connect with somebody there to have a chat to understand if like a more modern version of that and more automated with, you know, dashboards and everything, if it could make sense?

Yeah, unfortunately, the guy, the guy, they were at MSNG, but I, again, I don't see anybody from InnovaFlex. signed up for MSEC this time. They went to the Flex... conference, which was last month in Arizona. So I think They're not going to go to all of them. But yes, I can connect you with a guy who... would be able, he might not necessarily be the guy, but he would be a first good, the first guy you could talk to.

And then, then maybe he would say, yeah, you want to, I mean, I think Michael Johnson is the name of the guy that you would really want to talk to. And the guy I know is Rick Capel. So, um, Rick is a really, really, really good equipment engineer. And he's also in charge of making sure technicians do a good job. And my, Bye, y'all. has helped Rick and all the equipment engineers. I mean, the other thing you know is usually equipment engineers they're like technicians that got promoted to engineer.

They're not really engineers.

Yeah, they don't have a necessarily degree.

Yeah, so having this tool made all of them better at training the technicians. And again, a 24/7 fab, you want the people at night to know what to do. It's always a weak point.

Or when somebody goes on vacation. Like, why?

When somebody goes on vacation, yeah, we even had an idea back in the day, we would bring iPads and we would have all their stuff with them on an iPad and they would enter it in the fab. But we found out that it was good enough at the end of their shift just to hit a few lines, add a few lines, what they did on their shift, if they had to fix a problem, what was the problem. If they had root cause, they would tell us that.

It's not always easy. And it's very useful and helpful. I should actually text Rick and say, hey, do you guys still use my file? He'll probably say, It's interesting.

Yeah, because the other thing that we want to expand in the future is to put a speaker on the device as well, where when the LLMs are advanced enough for your FAB, your own, like, let's say, Flex LLM, then you can ask questions like, what did the previous guy do last night on his shift? And the LLM will give you the quick summary, and you just hear it. So That's also where we want to go in the future.

Yeah, so... Yeah, so I think you should sign up for MSCC. And I'll see you in Boston, and then we can chat. I'll give you some names of people. And-Yeah, I'll try-The best thing is to get in with somebody who's willing to– work with you a little bit, and it'll help. It's kind of like a win-win. Yeah, they'll share some stuff with you and then you'll you'll say, hey, there's a there's a newer way to do this that we think would be very good.

And then the predictive maintenance, the automated predictive maintenance is what we ultimately offer.

Yeah, yeah. No, this is great.

You really helped me here and I think It's nice to see that somebody tried to solve this before and solved it enough for them to work and then--So what you're talking about is something that just It requires having been in a clean room and observed things and common sense. These two things. And then you combine that. And like I said, I worked at that company for about 15 or 17 years in two different places.

It was in Palo Alto. And then that was a Gen 2.5 facility. So in the glass world, sizes were given gen names. Gen 2.5 was... 370 by 460 millimeters. So already bigger than a 300 millimeter wafer. Yeah, but kind of rectangular.

And this was back in the 90s.

They then pivot, they needed bigger substrates. So they They shut down the two and a half gen facility in Palo Alto, which was sad for me because it was five miles from my house. And they moved production to Colorado Springs. So they bought an old LSI Logic fab and they have what's called a gen four and a half fab there. And that's 730 millimeters by 920. And it's the resist is coated with an extrusion coat or not a spinner.

from a wafer fab but it is definitely a semiconductor fab yeah do they have all the same engines what do they make because i know that they make the square modules So they make They make the backplane, the active matrix backplane for x-ray imaging is their primary product. And they sell that. to Infineon, well, to Trixel, which then is owned byPhilips, Infineon, and Uh... Yeah, it's Trixel. It's free.

I'm forgetting the third one. It's a French defense company. Starts with a T. And then In the US, it's very young. They sell it too. But they have a foundry now. And they have the ability to make polyimide coatings so they can do flexible versions of their products. And they have flex products. And I know they... Since I left probably five and a half years ago, they've gotten some... some business like, you know, Applied and Google, you know, other customers.

And yeah, so it's interesting. It's a very, it's like making a display, but you're not making a display anymore. You're making a detector. It's a sensor detector. So that's where the sensor, that's why I'm sending is, I got sick of hopping on an airplane and flying to Colorado twice a month. I thought, God, there's got to be a place I could work closer to home.

Yeah, it's much more enjoyable.

It's so tiring traveling.

Yeah, so I'll let you know about the contact and hope to see you next week.

For that, I'll try to see if I can get a sign up through Northeastern or see if I allocate some funding from the startup. Um... Yeah.

I can give you a code. I can give you a code that gives you 15% off.

Alright, yeah, that could be interesting. Maybe you mentioned that through the email already.

Maybe, but since I have it here, OK. Um... It's...

Yeah, and I put in the chat also the website of our company and you can take a look. We don't have yet everything in there, but we try to put something out there so we can show other people what we do. We called our box Industrial Charm. So we tried to give it a brand name so some people will start recognizing it hopefully in the future. Oh, okay. I get the discount code. Perfect.

Yeah, yeah. MSDC26Guest15. That gets you 15% off. Awesome. I don't know if Abnito is a Semi member. Are you a Semi member already?

No, not yet. Not yet. Hopefully.

Yeah.

So it's $1,000 per startup to join Semi.

And that's pretty good, right? Per year, yeah.

Okay, that's not too bad.

Yeah, it's very cheap for startups. And then that'll get you a better That'll get you the member price, 15% off. Otherwise it'll be the non-member price.

Do you think I have time to sign up to be a member and then sign up for that? for the conference? Or is it because somebody told me there's a long process, there's a waiting list to be a member. Oh, maybe that was just to get in touch with the semiconductor fabs.

That's with FOA.

That's the owners alliance. Got it, okay. I think to join Semi, once they get your payment, you're a member. I can give you the, The guy's name that you want to reach out to is... Eric Rude? And I'll give you his email. Okay.

Yeah, that for a thousand, I think that's pretty good price. So I think I should sign up for sure. Cause I mean, if I'm already talking with KLA in this, Okay.

Yeah. So Eric Rude, he's the America, Semi-America's membership director. And he can... You can, and there's also, let's see, I could, there's one last thing. There's actually a join semi Peace.

How many members still?

Okay. I'm putting that Here, here.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, you're a startup. Yeah, yeah.

You might have seen our Like during the presentation we have a partnership with Bosch like to get their best extra Oh, you know, you know Mauro Ruboni.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We are good friends and yeah, uh I knew before I knew Mauro, I knew Marcellino and I saw his stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marcellino is a buddy of mine. Yeah, he's...

He'll be there. He'll be there at MSCC.

Yeah, he's advising me. He's an advisor at the startup. So, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, so.

Yeah, he's an MSIG Hall of Famer from, Two years ago. And yeah, I usually arrange an MSIG, Bosch, reception after the first day of Sensors Converge and I'll turn my attention more to that after MSCC.

It's kind of a busy week here.

But yeah, I know Marcelino well. Yeah, he'll be there. You know, Bosh is a big... MSIG member and I guess you're guys in the category of sensor user, sensor You're a customer of a sensor company.

Right now we are a customer of a sensor company, right? And probably we're going to be customer of like some edge compute company. platform chip because you know now As we grow, probably to make sense to optimize the edge hardware, right? Like to get something that is like state of the art. Like now I just applied to Nvidia innovation program because some friends of mine said, oh, that the work there, you should apply to that one.

Because maybe you get access to like new hardware, like discounted hardware to run the thing on the edge. So yeah, that's, we are not planning to build our sensor or our chips at the company.

Maybe the Piedmonts. Yeah, so you're a young guy. I saw an article this weekend. In the 1980s, there was a supercomputer called a Cray. the Cray supercomputer. And the question was, How powerful is the Cray compared to an iPhone 17? And it turned out that the iPhone 17 is something like a million times faster.

Yeah, I mean, we went to the moon with the processing power of a hand calculator, right? Right.

We're talking orders of magnitude now, yeah. Like, many orders of magnitude.

Yeah, but all these edge things and just doing compute, efficiently is a huge trend. And so, yeah, so MSIG, I would say more and more we're going to get, we kind of traditionally had a lot of big sensor companies Mems sensor companies and stuff, but more and more we're gonna start doing things like last week where we focused on a topic. And then a lot of the companies that are involved actually they buy sensors and they put them in systems.

And so the sensor companies will go because they'll see new uses for their sensors. And the companies that buy sensors, like to have the sensor companies there because they probably already know them, but It's nice to get together. Yeah. Okay. I do need to run. All right. Sorry.

I kept you over time. It was great talking to you. Yeah. Reach out if you have any questions.

Awesome. Thank you so much. And I'll see you hopefully in Boston. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. And I'll see you hopefully in Boston. Yeah. Okay. All right. Bye-bye. -