A brief introduction to MEMS

Dr. M.S.Suresh
HOD, Electronics and Communication Department
BNMIT, Bangalore
 What are MEMS?
• Micro Electro Mechanical Systems
(MEMS)
• System size 1-100µm
• Merges with NEMS 10- 1000nm
• Need not involve any mechanical motion
 Examples
• Sensors
• RF switches
• Scan mirrors
• Print heads
• TV displays

• Already in commercial use

 Materials used
• Silicon
• Polymers
• Metals
Basic processes

Deposition Patterning Etching

 Silicon
• Hookean material
– Perfect elasticity
– No loss of energy when flexed
– Low fatigue; stands billons of cycles
• Material properties well understood
• Easily available
• Amenable to well known VLSI processes
 Polymers
• Silicon is costly; polymers are cheap
• Bulk production possible
• Used in micro fluidics
• Injection moulding possible
• Ease of fabrication
 Metals
• Are not Hookean at small dimensions
• Still used as reflectors, conductors
• Gold, nickel, aluminium, silver, platinum ,
vanadium are used
• Simpler to deposit
 Deposition
• Physical vapour deposition (PVD)
– Sputtering
– Evaporation
– Ion implantation
• Chemical vapour deposition (CVD)
– Reacting chemicals
– Thermal oxidation
 Patterning
• Optical lithography
• Electron beam lithography
• Ion beam lithography
• Xray lithography

• Method depends on feature size

 Etching
• Wet etching • Dry etching
• Isotrphic – Xenondifluride
• Anisotropic – Hydrogen fluride

• Electrochemical • Plasma etching

– Sputtering
– Reactive ion etching
 Design process
• Concept
• Paper design
• Concept simulation
• Prototyping
• FEM analysis (modelling)
• Simulated testing
• Hardware to foundry
 Software used
• ANSYS
• COMSOL
• Covntorware
• Intellisuite
 Design process
• Masks
• Etch process
• Deposition
• Modelling
• Testing
• Foundry/ real device
 MEMES devices
• Adaptive optics for ophthalmic
applications
• Air bag accelerometer
• Pressure sensor
• Mirror arrays for TV display
• RF switches
• Biomedical sensors
• Disposable devices
 Challenges
• Limited Options
• Most companies who wish to explore the potential of MEMS and
Nanotechnology have very limited options for prototyping or manufacturing
devices, and have no capability or expertise in microfabrication technology.
Few companies will build their own fabrication facilities because of the high
cost. A mechanism giving smaller organizations responsive and affordable
access to MEMS and Nano fabrication is essential.
 Challenges
• Packaging
• The packaging of MEMS devices and systems needs to improve
considerably from its current primitive state. MEMS packaging is
more challenging than IC packaging due to the diversity of MEMS
devices and the requirement that many of these devices be in
contact with their environment. Currently almost all MEMS and
Nano development efforts must develop a new and specialized
package for each new device. Most companies find that packaging
is the single most expensive and time consuming task in their
overall product development program. As for the components
themselves, numerical modeling and simulation tools for MEMS
packaging are virtually non-existent. Approaches which allow
designers to select from a catalog of existing standardized
packages for a new MEMS device without compromising
performance would be beneficial.
 Challenges
• Fabrication Knowledge Required
• Currently the designer of a MEMS device
requires a high level of fabrication knowledge in
order to create a successful design. Often the
development of even the most mundane MEMS
device requires a dedicated research effort to
find a suitable process sequence for fabricating
it. MEMS device design needs to be separated
from the complexities of the process sequence.
 What are you going to do?
• Select a MEMS device from existing
literature
• Learn comsol and coventorware/ intllisuite
• Design a device by choosing proper
proces
• Model
• Test
• No fabrication
 Actuator
Scan mirror

MEMS mirror
Hinge structure
An early optical switch.  An electrostatic actuator is used to
drive a geared transmission connected to a rack and pinion
system.  Running the actuator will raise and lower the mirror
Thank you for not sleeping