Siemens AG
Siemens, headquartered in Berlin and Munich in Germany, is one of the world’s largest electrical engineering and electronics companies and holds leading market positions in all its business areas. In fiscal 2006 (ended September 30), the company employed approximately 475,000 people and posted sales of €87.325 billion from continuing operations. Net income for the year totaled €3.033 billion. Siemens generates more than 80 percent of its sales outside Germany. The company's business portfolio is focused on six key areas: Information and Communications, Automation and Control, Power, Transportation, Medical and Lighting. Global business operations at Siemens are the responsibility of 13 Groups, including Siemens Financial Services and Siemens Real Estate. Innovation is a top priority for a world-class electrical engineering and electronics company. In fiscal 2006, Siemens invested €5.7 billion in research and development, including customer-specific activities to stay at the forefront of technological progress. Last fiscal year, Siemens researchers and developers turned out around 10,400 inventions – a 17% increase – and applied for patents for about 6,200 of them. The company is the largest patent applicant in Germany, in second place in Europe and among the top ten in the United States. Most of Siemens’ approximately 49,000 researchers and developers are working on software projects, making the company one of the world’s largest software houses. Siemens continues to concentrate on expanding the range of services, solutions and systems that complement its product portfolio. In this project, Siemens is presented by Corporate Technology (CT); CT supports the business units of Siemens AG by R&D in fast implementation of innovations into products. Main working areas of Department “Coatings and Microsensors” within division “Materials and Microsystems” of CT are:
• Development and fabrication of microstructures (fluidic switching devices, branches, thermal conductivity detectors) from Silicon for extraordinary fast micro gaschromatographs. These systems are on the market as MicroSAM™ and SiTrans CV™; latter are used by customers for determination of calorific values of natural gas and control of mixing these from different sources.
• Development of pressure- and flow sensors as well as devices for performing unit operations (e.g. mixing, separation) in micro chemical engineering (product of these activities is SiProcess™).
• Development of sensitive wireless sensor systems for preventive maintenance of large electrical machines (such as motors, power generators and wind power systems).
• Ultra-Precison-Machining of Silicon and other materials for optical Low-Cost devices with extremely high data rates (up to 1,3 Tbit/s), for use in modern (Internet) communication technology.
• Simulation of thermomechanical, thermoelectrical, optical and fluidic questions.
• Deposition of various adhesive coatings for fatigue protection, optical, high temperature and other applications.
• Participation in EU FP6-Project “Impulse “
All these working areas are technological highly synergetically connected and in addition there is easy access possible to analytics and special technologies of Corporate Technology as a whole.
Siemens AG people in ROC Project
Arno Steckenborn (principal investigator)
Oliver Lade (key scientist)
