“Performance Comparison of MEMS based Polysilicon

and GaAs Thermal Actuator”

A thesis report is submitted in the partial fulfillment of the

Requirement for the award of degree of

MASTERS OF TECHNOLOGY

IN

MICROELECTRONICS

Submitted by

Jasleen kaur

Registration number:15-UIT-631

Roll number: 15607

Under the Supervision of

Prof. Renu Vig

Director, UIET

Ms Harvinder Kaur

Asst prof, UIET

UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,

PANJAB UNIVERSITY, CHANDIGARH 160014

2015-2017
 CERTIFICATE
I hereby certify that the work which is being submitted in this thesis titled “Performance
Comparison of MEMS based Polysilicon and GaAs Thermal Actuator”, in partial fulfillment of
the requirement for the award of degree of “Master of Technology in Microelectronics”
submitted in UIET, Panjab University, Chandigarh, is an authentic record of my own work
carried out under the supervision of “Prof Renu Vig” and “Ms. Harvinder Kaur” The matter
presented in this thesis has not been submitted for the award of any other degree of this or any
other university.

Supervisor Co-ordinator

Prof. Renu Vig Co-ordinator(ECE)

Director, UIET UIET, Panjab University

Co-Supervisor Chandigarh

Ms Harvinder Kaur

Asst Prof, UIET

 DECLARATION
I, hereby declare that work presented in this thesis report entitled” Performance Comparison of
MEMS based Polysilicon and GaAs thermal actuator” is genuine record of my own work
carried out as per requirements for the award of degree Masters of Technology in
Microelectronics(Session2015-2017),submitted in the department of Electronics and
Communication, University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Panjab University,
Chandigarh. This work is carried out under the guidance of Prof Renu Vig , Director of UIET
and Ms Harvinder Kaur, Assistant professor ,UIET

I have not submitted the matter in this thesis report for award of any other degree.

Date: Jasleen Kaur

Place: M.Tech(Microelectronics)

Roll no-15607

UIET,PU,Chandigarh
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my guide Prof. Renu Vig( Director) and my
co-guide, Ms Harvinder kaur (Assistant Professor) for their patient guidance and support
throughout my work. Without their passionate participation and input, the validation survey could
not have been successfully conducted. I am truly very fortunate to have the opportunity to work
with them. I found their guidance to be extremely valuable. I am also thankful to the Coordinator
of Electronics and Communication Engineering Department, entire faculty and staff of
Electronics and Communication Engineering Department. I would also like to thank my friends
who devoted their valuable time and helped me in all possible ways towards successful
completion of this work. I thank all those who have contributed directly or indirectly to this
work. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents for their unconditional support and
encouragement.

Jasleen Kaur
 ABSTRACT
MEMS is a technology of miniaturizing devices to the microscopic level. Power conservation
and minimum area is the most premium advantage of these devices. Sensors and actuators are
most prominent devices in this field. They can be fabricated using most of the surface
micromachining processes and can be operated in integrated circuit (IC) device voltages and
power rating. Silicon (Si) based Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are now well
understood and widely used in various integrated micromachined microsensors and
microactuators, In addition to this, gallium arsenide (GaAs) offers a number of material-related
properties and technological advantages over Si . These include well known properties, such as
direct band gap transition and high electron mobility but GaAs also offers some disadvantages
due to which is it not so suitable for thermal actuator. This can be shown with the help of FEM
simulation.Heat transfer through and around these microstructures are very complex. In this
paper we present an analysis of this microstructures and perform its FEM analysis using Comsol
Multiphysics 4.2. We have a model which is used to compare the behaviour of thermal
microactuator made up from polysilicon and Gallium Arsenide. By varying the voltage and
geomatrical dimension ,we get a clear understanding of the performance of the structure.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate…………………………………………………………………………………………
Declaration……………………………………………………………………………………......
Acknowledgement………..............................................................................................................
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………………..

List of figures…………………………………………………………………………………….

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………..

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1MEMS…………………………………………………………………………………………2

1.2MEMS Actuators……………………………………………………………………………...5

1.2.1 Electrostatic actuator………………………………………………………………5

1.2.2 Thermal actuator…………………………………………………………………...6

1.2.3 Other actuators…………………………………………………………………….7

CHAPTER 2: LITREATURE SURVEY

2.1 Research paper and journals…………………………………………………………………8

2.2 Micromachining techniques…………………………………………………………………10

2.2.1 Bulk Micromachining……………………………………………………………...11

2.2.2 Wafer Bonding…………………………………………………………………….12

2.2.3 LIGA………………………………………………………………………………12

2.2.4 Surface Micromachining…………………………………………………………...13

 2.2.5 Flip chip technique…………………………………………………………………. 14

2.3 Chevron type Actuator………………………………………………………………………17

2.4 Two arm horizontal thermal actuator………………………………………………………..18

2.4.1 Three arm horizontal thermal actuator……………………………………………….18

2.5 Material for Electro thermal actuator………………………………………………………..19

CHAPTER 3: OBJECTIVES AND IMPLEMENTATION TOOLS

3.1 Objectives…………………………………………………………………… ……………. 23

3.2 Implementation tool…………………………………………………………………………23

3.2.1 Model definition……………………………………………………………………..24

CHAPTER 4: PROPOSED WORK

4.1 Design of thermal actuator…………………………………………………………………..31

4.2 Comparison of various properties of two materials…………………………………………31

4.2.1 Displacement………………………………………………………………………….31

4.2.2 Volumetric Strain……………………………………………………………………..32

4.2.3 Power dissipation density…………………………………………………………….32

4.2.4 Von mises stress………………………………………………………………………33

CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND SIMULATIONS

5.1 Displacement……………………………………………………………………….. …36

5.2 Volumetric strain………………………………………………………………………..38

5.3 Power dissipation density……………………………………………………………….39

5.4 Von mises stress…………………………………………………………………………41

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE………………………………….47

REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………48
 LIST OF FIGURES
Fig 1.1: The schematic view of MEMS chip…………………………………………………..4

Fig 1.2: The schematic diagram of electrostatic micro actuator………………………………6.

Fig 1.3: Comb-drive electrostatic micro actuator……………………………………………..6

Fig 1.4: electrostatic micro-motor……………………………………………………………...6

Fig 1.5 The schematic diagram of thermal pneumatic micro actuator………………………...7

Fig 1.6 The thermal bimetallic micro actuator with the cantilever prototype………………... 7

Fig 2.1 Micro accelerometer cantilever type…………………………………………………. 8

Fig 2.2 Various Bulk-micromachining Structures…………………………………………… 11

Fig 2.3 Schematic diagram of LIGA process………………………………………………… 13

Fig: 2.4 Schematic of Surface Micromachining……………………………………………… 14

Fig 2.5 The schematic diagram of Flip Chip process……………………………………….....16

Fig 2.6 Chevron actuator design parameters…………………………………………………...17

Fig 2.7 Top & Bottom view: left side of a chevron micro-actuator…………………………...17

Fig 2.8 Schematic diagram of Two Arm thermal actuator…………………………………….18

Fig 2.9 Improvised design of two arm electrothermal actuator……………………………….19

Fig 3.1 Thermal Microactuator in Comsol………………………………………………….... 23

Fig 3.2 Electrical boundary conditions ……………………………………………………….23

Fig 3.3 Heat transfer boundary conditions……………………………………………………24

Fig 3.4 Structural boundary conditions and constraints………………………………………24

Fig 3.5 Model wizard…………………………………………………………………………25

Fig 3.6 Physics window in comsol…………………………………………………………...26.

Fig 3.7 Study type in comsol window………………………………………………………..26

Fig 4.1 Thermal actuator designed in COMSOL………………………………………….....31

Fig 4.2 A simple tension test and a real life loading condition………………………………33

Fig 4.3 Representation of distortion case…………………………………………………….34

Fig 5.1 Simulation profiles of polysilicon displacement of actuator at 200[um]…………….36

Fig 5.2 Simulation profiles of polysilicon displacement of actuator at 250[um]…………….37

Fig 5.3 Simulation profiles of polysilicon displacement of actuator at 300[um]…………….37

Fig 5.4 Simulation profiles of GaAs displacement of actuator at 200[um]………………….37

Fig 5.5 Simulation profiles of GaAs displacement of actuator at 250[um]………………….37

Fig 5.6 Simulation profiles of GaAs displacement of actuator at 300[um]………………….38

Fig 5.7 Simulation profiles of polysilicon Volumetric strain of actuator at 200[um]………..38

Fig 5.8 Simulation profiles of polysilicon Volumetric strain of actuator at 250[um]………..38

Fig 5.9 Simulation profiles of polysilicon Volumetric strain of actuator at 300[um]………..39

Fig 5.10 Simulation profiles of GaAs Volumetric strain of actuator at 200[um]……………39

Fig 5.11 Simulation profiles of GaAs Volumetric strain of actuator at 250[um]……………39

Fig 5.12 Simulation profiles of GaAs Volumetric strain of actuator at 300[um]……………39

Fig 5.13 Simulation profiles of polysilicon power dissipation density of actuator at200[um].40

Fig 5.14 Simulation profiles of polysilicon power dissipation density of actuator at 250[um].40
Fig 5.15Simulation profiles of polysilicon power dissipation density of actuator at 300[um].40

Fig 5.16Simulation profiles of GaAs power dissipation density of actuator at 250[um]……..40

Fig 5.17 Simulation profiles of GaAs power dissipation density of actuator at 300[um]…….41

Fig 5.18 Simulation profiles of Polysilicon Von mises stress of actuator at 200[um]………..41

Fig 5.19 Simulation profiles of Polysilicon Von mises stress of actuator at 250[um]………..41

Fig 5.20 Simulation profiles of Polysilicon Von mises stress of actuator at 300[um]………..42

Fig 5.21 Simulation profiles of GaAs Von mises stress of actuator at 200[um]……………...42

Fig 5.22 Simulation profiles of GaAs Von mises stress of actuator at 250[um]……………...42

Fig 5.23 Simulation profile of Polysilicon first principle stress………………………………43

Fig 5.24 Simulation profiles of Polysilicon second principle stress…………………………..43

Fig 5.25 Simulation profiles of Polysilicon third principle stress…………………………….44

Fig 5.26 Simulation profiles of GaAs first principle stress…………………………………...44

Fig 5.27 Simulation profiles of GaAs second principle stress………………………………..44

Fig 5.28 Simulation profiles of GaAs Third principle stress…………………………………45

Fig 5.29 Four graphs comparison of parameters………………………………………………45

 LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.Layer thickness……………………………………………………………………15

Table2. Polysilicon………………………………………………………………………....20

Table 3.Gold…………………………………………………………………………….....20

Table 4.Nickel……………………………………………………………………………...20

Table 5.GaAs………………………………………………………………………………21

Table 6.Material properties of polysilicon…………………………………………………30

Table 7.Material properties of GaAs………………………………………………………31