"MEMS: chips sprout wings"

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) downsize the sensing element in a detector to reduce costs, improve accuracy and offer integration rivaling semiconductors. Unfortunately, the world does not downsize just because the element being used to sense it does. Consequently, the smaller MEMS devices become, the more easily they are clogged by dust and other particulate. Now Omron Electronic Components LLC (Schaumburg, Ill.) claims to have solved this problem for MEMS air-flow sensors with an innovative mechanical architecture it dubs the "penguin."
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202802972