When Hubert Benzel goes home and retreats into his den, he often gets flashes of inspiration. “Most of my ideas actually come when I’m away from work. I relax, clear my head. Then suddenly the idea just comes to me. Afterwards I feel incredibly refreshed and good,” explains the inventor. Others might lose themselves in a book or their favorite CD – but Hubert Benzel relaxes by solving technical problems.

The 44-year-old’s main passion is for developing micromechanical pressure sensors. He first developed an interest in this area as a student. In those days the field was in its infancy, and his professor advised the young scientist Benzel against becoming involved: “Steer clear of that. There’s no money to be made in it.” But the electrical engineering student was not put off, and wrote his first patent. “I have always been fascinated by the idea of doing something nobody has ever done before.”

Nowadays, Bosch develops micromechanical sensors for measuring pressure, mass flow, acceleration and yaw, for example – some 400 million of these tiny high-performance devices have been aimed mainly at the demanding automotive electronics market. Pressure sensors for brake boosters, oil pressure or fuel injection systems can be found in almost every engine. At the same time, new markets are also being opened up. Pressure sensors are for instance also applied in altimeters, which can be used in cell phones to display your barometric altitude.