The digital products that we've come to rely on in our daily lives, such as mobile phones, personal computers, and digital household appliances have become smaller and smaller as technology improves. At the same time, they're getting better and better at performing tasks for us by quickly anticipating our needs. Naturally, as these products become more compact, the components that are built into them must become smaller as well. For this and other reasons, Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) have been attracting considerable attention from the industry and the public in recent years. MEMS uses semiconductor processing technology to enable super-high-precision processing at micrometer (one-millionth of a meter) or even nanometer (one-billionth of a meter) levels-a degree of precision that is impossible for humans to replicate. OMRON was among the first in Japan to launch R&D efforts in this exciting field.

• The History of MEMS