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Glenn Zorpette: Hiya and welcome to Fixing the Future, an IEEE Spectrumpodcast the place we take a look at concrete options to some large issues. I’m your host, Glenn Zorpette, Editorial Director at Spectrum. And earlier than we begin, I simply need to let you know you could get the most recent protection from a few of Spectrum‘s most vital beats – together with AI, local weather change, and robotics – by signing up for certainly one of our free newsletters. Simply go to spectrum.ieee.org/newsletters to subscribe.
Digital quartz watches arrived on the scene round 1970, and even as we speak, they’ve benefits over their smartwatch brethren with batteries that final years, not days. However the motor that drives the hour and minute fingers of the watch hasn’t actually modified since then. Now, French firm SilMach is utilizing a brand new wristwatch to reveal its superior silicon MEMS know-how with a brand new watch motion that’s so environment friendly you would possibly solely want to vary the battery about as soon as a decade. Right here to speak about that watch and the know-how behind it’s SilMach’s co-CEO and Chief Gross sales Officer, Pierre-Francois Louvigne, and likewise Jean-Baptiste Carnet, the co-CEO and Chief Monetary Officer. Pierre Francois and Jean-Baptiste, welcome to the present.
Pierre-Francois Louvigne: Welcome.
Jean-Baptiste Carnet: Thanks for having us.
Louvigne: Thanks.
Zorpette: Glad to have you ever right here. So my first query, the query that popped into my thoughts after I first examine your outstanding new watch motor is, why make a tiny electrical motor now, right now, for an analog watch? Aren’t smartwatches taking up the wristwatch market now, the Apple Watch, and so forth? Aren’t these the factor everybody appears to be shopping for?
Louvigne: Yeah. Thanks for inviting us on this speak. Thanks very a lot. What we are able to say is that within the quartz watch, there’s this know-how title Lavet motor since greater than 50 years. And should you open a basic quartz watch, you will notice that there’s a motor that’s outdated know-how, electromagnetic know-how. And we invented at SilMach a brand new motor based mostly on essentially the most superior know-how and that’s totally appropriate with electronics.
Zorpette: So you may have a specific technique or a form of watch in thoughts that you simply suppose will develop sooner or later?
Louvigne: The purpose is that this know-how is clearly devoted first to the smartwatch market as a result of this market is able to use these micromotors.
Zorpette: So that you don’t imply the smartwatch that most individuals consider, which is the Apple Watch, which has no fingers in any respect. I imply, no bodily fingers. It’s only a show display. You appear to be referring to what’s generally known as the hybrid smartwatch or the hybrid-connected wristwatch. Is that appropriate?
Louvigne: Sure, it’s appropriate. Sure. The target is to make it possible to any watchmaker, together with related watchmakers, that it’s attainable now to make use of a motor to drive fingers on a PCB, on the digital board. And providing this chance, we expect that these makers can design new watches.
Zorpette: So who’re among the corporations that make these hybrid smartwatches?
Louvigne: I feel essentially the most superior firm is Withings.
Zorpette: Withings.
Louvigne: Withings. It’s a French model. And the market that they’re concentrating on with the watch is the well being market. And we imagine that on this market, the individuals are prepared to have like a basic watch; they will say additionally classic look. And if you wish to do this, you then want motor to drive the fingers.
Zorpette: Bodily fingers.
Louvigne: Bodily fingers, sure, appropriate.
Zorpette: So Withings is an enormous title on this class, however there are others which might be within the class, appropriate?
Louvigne: Yeah, there’s Garmin. Everyone is aware of Garmin. Fossil additionally, that could be a large participant. They’re all on the lookout for part of the market. Garmin is extra for sport exercise. Fossil is extra on vogue design. And Withings is for well being.
Zorpette: So for listeners who may not be aware of it, this can be a wristwatch. And while you take a look at it, it seems like an old-school, a standard analog wristwatch. Nevertheless, they typically have small digital screens that present info. And in reality, the watch can even sometimes connect with your smartphone, so it could collect information out of your smartphone. These watches typically have accelerometers or blood stress displays and so forth in them. So that they sometimes have a whole lot of electronics, as a result of not solely have they got these sensors, however they’ve acquired to have the motors. And if I perceive you accurately, your motor is extra compact and environment friendly, which supplies you benefits on this area.
Louvigne: Sure, proper. One of many large benefits of the motor is that it is rather compact. Roughly, you acquire 50 % in quantity. Might be footprint, could possibly be peak, about 50 %. So it’s [crosstalk].
Zorpette: 50 % extra room contained in the watch case.
Louvigne: Sure, sure, sure. And as you stated, successfully in this kind of watch, you may have a whole lot of very superior know-how. And now the motor is as superior as the opposite perform within the watch. That’s the large distinction now.
Zorpette: So inform us somewhat bit about your wristwatch motor. I imagine you name it the MEMS field is the way you confer with it. What are the benefits that your watch motor has if you’ll combine it with different electronics on a tiny circuit board that goes inside a wristwatch?
Louvigne: The very large change in comparison with the present know-how, the Lavet one, is that the MEMS box–
Zorpette: So the present motor known as the Lavet motor—
Louvigne: Yeah, the Lavet motor.
Zorpette: —as you talked about.
Louvigne: From the title of the inventor, Marius Lavet. He was a French man within the ‘30s, 1936, precisely. And he invented this know-how that’s in every of quartz watch as we speak, multiple billion of quartz watch. So this know-how is the one one you should utilize up to now, okay? However the motor shouldn’t be coming from the electronics. So it’s electromagnetic. It’s like a cumbersome micromotors, and you need to screw the motor on the PCB. Screw it. So that you think about the price of screwing a motor on a PCB. In our case, the MEMS field is designed to be SMT-compatible.
Zorpette: So that you simply use floor mount soldering know-how to mount it proper to the circuit board?
Louvigne: Sure, appropriate. It’s like some other digital element. You possibly can deal with it and resolve it on the PCB as one other one.
Zorpette: So Jean-Baptiste, what are among the benefits now with this motor? What are among the issues that you simply now have in your watch that you simply couldn’t have with the old-style Lavet motor?
Carnet: Sure. As Pierre-Francois talked about, it’s extra compact. It’s a lot thinner. And contained in the hybrid smartwatch, individuals must think about that nearly half of the area contained in the watch is definitely devoted simply to the micromotor as it’s as we speak. And the little sensors, all of the know-how, all of the know-how of the manufacturers which might be developed as we speak, they’ve to regulate round half of the area already being taken by the micromotor. So it’s by far the largest half inside the watch, and making it way more compact, about 50 %, a lot thinner, both permits for brand new designs of watches the place you would make a lot smaller watches. For instance, we all know that the Garmin watches are fairly cumbersome. Or you would hold the identical design as as we speak, however implement extra know-how inside it as a result of you may have more room, or make it last more with an even bigger battery, for instance, since you freeze numerous area. In order that’s an enormous level. The SMT compatibility can be very fascinating as a result of as you eliminate the labor-intensive side of assembling a watch, you’re now free to assemble it wherever you need. You don’t have to possibly go to a rustic the place labor is extra reasonably priced. You possibly can think about assembling it in Europe, assembling it within the US, which is at the moment not attainable. Additionally, the motor is anti-magnetic, which is fascinating as a result of the sensor interactivity can derail the present motor somewhat bit, or the interplay with magnets inside the lady’s purse, for instance. Watchmakers informed us, “Oh, that’s a really fascinating function as a result of it’s an issue now we have proper now.”
Zorpette: How concerning the power utilization and the precision of the tick marks because it goes across the face of the watch?
Carnet: Yeah. That’s additionally one side of it’s, first, the motor is consuming much less power additionally than present know-how. So you’ll be able to think about having an extended battery life as properly. That’s why the watch we’re launching with the know-how can supply greater than 10 years of battery on a daily battery you could purchase wherever. And likewise, as you stated, the liberty of motion is a vital function as a result of the motor is just about electronics. You possibly can program it, pilot it nonetheless you need. You possibly can have it go ahead, backward, quicker, slower. And what watch fanatics have an interest about is you’ll be able to both have it tick, for instance, the seconds like a conventional quartz watch, or you’ll be able to have it make a way more fluid motion, which is considerably of a holy grail for watch fanatics. In order that’s issues that develop into attainable with our know-how that was not with conventional ones. And that’s what watch designers since we unveiled the know-how a pair weeks in the past, and we’ll carry on doing it at CES Engineering.
Zorpette: So right here’s my very own pet peeve about watches. After I was a younger man and I did a whole lot of scuba diving, I truly had a watch that had tiny tritium fuel markings, so it glowed on a regular basis. It didn’t must be charged with a brilliant mild. And I liked this watch as a result of I might learn it clearly underwater. Even at night time, it was brilliant sufficient. And likewise, at night time after I was sleeping, if I wakened in the course of the night time and the watch was on my bedside desk, I might see what time it was with out having to show a light-weight on or something like that. And I do know that these watches could be tough. They go lifeless after 5 or 6 or seven years as a result of the tritium half-life, they’re too dim to learn. However I’ve all the time puzzled if it will be attainable utilizing maybe some ultra-efficient light-emitting diode or different know-how to recreate that in some way. In the event you had sufficient area for a battery and different energy provides, should you had sufficient room within the case, should you might create these watches, which had been in style at one time. In the event you return even to World Warfare II, they made watches utilizing radium and so forth. It simply appeared such a sensible factor after I had it, aside from the truth that it went lifeless. However is that extra attainable now, technologically, with a really tiny and environment friendly motor?
Louvigne: Yeah, clearly it’s attainable. I don’t know if you already know among the watch coming from Timex. They’ve a selected patent on that. It’s like a luminescent dial that offers you the chance to see what time is it even at nighttime, totally darkish. So sure, it’s attainable to mix the know-how with different ones offering such a outcome. Yeah.
Zorpette: So that you talked about Timex. And in reality, that will get me into my subsequent query, which is, have you ever had curiosity from any main watchmakers but in your MEMS field motor?
Louvigne: Sure, we all know most of them— we all know most of them as a result of these corporations, they had been on the lookout for the progress we made on the know-how. So now we have been in touch with them for greater than 15 years. So sure, it’s accomplished. The actual partnership now we have with Timex was based mostly on the truth that we’re a small firm. We’re about 30 individuals in France. We’re within the good area for watchmaking as a result of it’s the previous one. Previously, there was an enormous exercise in watchmaking business. So we’re within the good area for that. And there’s one vital companion now we have that could be a subsidiary of Timex in France. And this firm named Fralsen is making all of the small elements utilized in quartz actions. So it was apparent that the— not the compatibility, however the synergy between our very new know-how and people basic elements was very fascinating. After which we went to the Timex Group and we determined to construct a three way partnership, so a typical firm that’s based mostly in France, and the title is TiMach. Timex, SilMach, TiMach.
Zorpette: TiMach. Okay. And so sooner or later, we could also be seeing this motor in watches from Timex or different corporations.
Louvigne: Yeah. I imply, the target of the three way partnership is to promote the know-how everywhere in the world. It’s clearly not particular to Timex. They may use it of their watch. However no, it’s open to the market extensively.
Zorpette: So I assume one other query that is likely to be on the minds of a few of our listeners is, why did it take so lengthy for somebody to harness the know-how of silicon microelectromechanical methods or silicon MEMS? We talked about that silicon MEMS know-how has been round for many years, 20 or 30 years, so far as I do know, however yours is the primary to harness it for a wristwatch motor. Was there some challenges that delayed this use?
Louvigne: Sure. Clearly, what we’re doing could be very distinctive as a result of there isn’t any different firm and even college that made this growth, okay? That is very distinctive as a result of, in reality, we’re combining the MEMS know-how that could be very superior. You must go in clear rooms to fabricate the silicon. However as quickly as you’ll end the silicon elements, you made solely part of the journey growth, okay? You must mix these silicon elements with extra basic elements coming from the watchmaking business. And that is what we do. We name this hybridization, that means that we join the silicon with basic micromechanics. And we’re the one firm that makes that on the earth. So now we have invented the motor, however now we have additionally invented the know-how for the meeting. That is fully new. And now we have patents in each sectors. So yeah, you want a whole lot of time for creating all these steps of the method.
Zorpette: Properly, thanks each very a lot. Once more, I’ve been speaking with Pierre-Francois Louvigne and Jean-Baptiste Carnet. They’re each with SilMach, and so they have a outstanding silicon MEMS wristwatch motor known as the MEMS field. And we’ve heard lots concerning the promise and challenges of this watch. For IEEE Spectrum’s Fixing the Future, I’m Glenn Zorpette and I hope you’ll be a part of us subsequent time.
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