MEMS, PIEZOELECTRIC

SENSING & ACTUATION

 CONTENTS
• History of MEMS Development
• Intrinsic Characteristics of MEMS
• Devices: Sensors and Actuators
• Overview of Microfabrication
• Photolithography
• Thin Film Deposition
• Thermal Oxidation of Silicon
• Wet Etching
• Silicon Anisotropic Etching
 CONTENTS
• Plasma Etching and Reactive Ion Etching
• Doping
• Wafer Dicing
• Wafer Bonding
• The Microelectronics Fabrication Process Flow
• Silicon-Based MEMS Processes
• Process Selection and Design
 MEMS TECHNOLOGY
• Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems or MEMS, is a
technology that in its most general form can be
defined as miniaturized Mechanical and Electro-
Mechanical elements(i.e., Devices & Structures)
that are made using the techniques of
microfabrication.
• Typically done on silicon or glass(SIO2) wafers.
• MEMS are made up of components between 1 to
100 micrometer in size.
 History of MEMS Development
• MEMS word introduced in 1986 i.e. in proposal
submitted to DARPA (Defense Advanced research
project agency) by the center for engineering design
university of UTAH.
• Thomas Edison’s first successful light bulb model
done in December 1879 at Menlo park.
• In 1904, British scientist John Ambrose Fleming first
showed his device famous as “Fleming Diode” to
convert an alternating current signal in to direct
current signal. The “Fleming Diode” was base on an
effect that Thomas Edison used in light bulb model
i.e. “vacuum tube”.
 History of MEMS Development
• In 16 December 1947, first time a Solid State
Electronic Transistor known as “Point Contact
Transistor” developed by John Bardeen and Walter
Brattain at bell laboratories led by physicist William
Shockly. This group has been working together on
experiments and theories of electric field effects in
solid state materials, with the aim of replacing
“Vacuum Tubes” with a smaller and less power
consuming devices. And Silicon oxidation is
demonstrated in 1953 in Bell Telephone
Laboratories & with this monolithic transistors are
implemented. Got Nobel prize in 1956.
 History of MEMS Development
• 1954: Piezoresistive effect in Germanium and
Silicon (C.S. Smith), this discovery showed that
silicon and germanium could sense air or water
pressure better than metal. Many MEMS devices
such as strain gauges, pressure sensors, and
accelerometers utilize the Piezoresistive Effect in
silicon.
• 1958: First Integrated Circuit (IC) (J.S. Kilby1958 /
Robert Noyce1959) Nobel prize in 2000.
Miniaturization of electronic circuits is started
with this.
History of MEMS Development
 History of MEMS Development
• The famous lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at
Bottom” is by Richard Feynman in 1959, from this it
is clear that there is a scope for micro and nano
devices to fulfill the future social technical needs.
• 1959 First silicon pressure sensor demonstrated
• 1967 Anisotropic deep silicon etching
• 1968 Resonant Gate Transistor Patented
• 1970‟s Bulk etched silicon wafers used as pressure
sensors
• 1971 The microprocessor is invented
 History of MEMS Development
• 1979, Hewlett Packard developed the Thermal
Inkjet Technology (TIJ). The TIJ rapidly heats ink,
creating tiny bubbles. When the bubbles collapse,
the ink squirts through an array of nozzles onto
paper and other media. MEMS technology is used
to manufacture the nozzles. The nozzles can be
made very small and can be densely packed for
high resolution printing.
• 1982 LIGA process, It allows for manufacturing of
high aspect ratio microstructures. High aspect ratio
structures are very skinny and tall.
 History of MEMS Development
• 1986 The atomic force microscope is invented
• 1986 Silicon wafer bonding (M. Shimbo)
• 1988 Batch fabricated pressure sensors via wafer bonding
• 1991 The carbon nanotube is discovered
• 1992 Grating light modulator (Solgaard, Sandejas, Bloom)
• 1992 Bulk micromachining (SCREAM process, Cornell)
• 1993 Digital mirror display (Texas Instruments)
• 1993 First surface micromachined accelerometer in high
volume production (Analog Devices)
• 1994 Bosch process for Deep Reactive Ion Etching is
patented
 History of MEMS Development
• 1996 Richard Smalley develops a technique for
producing carbon nanotubes of uniform diameter
• 1999 Optical network switch (Lucent)
• 2000s Optical MEMS boom
• 2000s Bio-MEMS proliferate
 Intrinsic Characteristics of MEMS
• There are three generic and distinct merits for
MEMS devices and microfabrication technologies:
 Miniaturization
Microelectronics Integration
Parallel fabrication with high precision.
• It is important to realize that these three merits will
not automatically lead to product and market
advantages. One must understand the complex
interplay between these elements to fully unleash
the power of MEMS technology.
 Miniaturization
Why miniaturization?
• Batch fabrication, lower cost per device,
• Less energy, less material consumed,
• Array of sensors possible,
• Can take advantage of different scaling laws,
• Integration with circuitry can reduce noise and
improve sensitivity,
• Reliability may improve,
• Fewer defects per chip
 Miniaturization
• Micromachining has become a key technology
for the miniaturization of sensors.
• Miniaturization is the trend to manufacture
ever smaller mechanical, optical and electronic
products and devices.
• In miniaturization the main problem is
satisfying the scaling laws; otherwise the device
may fail in functionality.
 Microelectronics Integration
• By integrating micromechanical devices with
electronics circuitry and offering the combined
system as a product, significant advantages can
be produced in a competitive market place.
• It is observed that silicon circuits that are
monolithically integrated with mechanical
elements have been involved in several
successful commercial MEMS applications, such
as Analog Devices accelerometers, digital light
processors, and ink jet printer heads.
 Parallel fabrication with high precision.
• Combined with photolithography, MEMS
technology can be used to realize unique three
dimensional features such as inverted pyramid
cavities, high aspect ratio trenches, through
wafer holes, cantilevers, and membranes.
• Modern lithography systems and techniques
provide not only finely defined features, but
also uniformity across wafers and batches.
 Devices: Sensors and Actuators
• MEMS technology enables revolutionary sensors
and actuators.
• Sensors are devices that detect and monitor
physical or chemical phenomenon.
• Actuators are ones that produce mechanical
motion, force, or torque.
• Sensors and actuators are collectively referred to
as transducers, which serve the function of
transforming signals or power from one energy
domain to another.
 Sensors Considerations
• Sensitivity. The sensitivity is defined as the ratio
between the magnitude of output signaland
that of the input stimulus.
• Linearity. If the output signal changes
proportionally with respect to the input signal,
the response is said to be linear.
• Accuracy. The ability of a sensor to provide
results close to the true value.
• Precision. The ability of a sensor to give the
same reading when repeatedly measuring
thesame quantity under the same conditions.
 Sensors Considerations
• resolution. It is also known as the detection
limit or minimal detectable signal (MDS). This
term signifies the smallest signal a sensor can
detect with confidence.
• Noise. Noise can be applied to anything that
obscures a desired signal
• Dynamic range. The dynamic range is the ratio
between the highest and the lowest detectable
signal levels. In many applications, a wide
dynamic range is desired.
 Actuators Considerations
• Torque and force output capacity. The actuator
must provide sufficient force or torque for the
task at hand.
• Range of motion. The amount of translation or
angular movement that the actuator can
produce.
• Dynamic response speed and bandwidth. The
actuator must be able to produce sufficiently
fast response.
• Power consumption and energy efficiency
 Actuators Considerations
• Ease of fabrication and availability of materials. To
reduce the potential costs of MEMS actuators,
there are two important strategies. One is to
reduce the costs of materials and processing time.
Another is to increase the process yield for a given
process in order to produce more functional units
in each batch.
• Linearity of displacement as a function of driving
bias. If the displacement varies with input power
or voltage in a linear fashion, the control strategy
would be simplified
 Overview of Microfabrication
Two important things to remember:
MEMS fabrication represents a paradigm shift
from traditional machining and manufacturing
processes. It does not involve methods such as
milling, lathing, polishing, joining, and welding.
The portfolio of MEMS fabrication techniques is
rapidly expanding, towards the goals of
increasing the variety of materials involved,
increasing the fabrication efficiency, and reducing
the cost of manufacturing.
Overview of Microfabrication
 Overview of Microfabrication
• MEMS and IC devices are generally made on single
crystal silicon wafers.
• Bulk silicon with crystalline consistency does not
exist in nature, and must be prepared through
laborious industrial processes.
• It starts with a perfect single crystal silicon seed.
• It is dipped into a molten silicon pool and slowly
drawn out of the liquid. Silicon crystallizes when
drawn into the atmosphere and establishes
crystallinity consistent with that of the initial seed.
 Overview of Microfabrication
• The rods are sawed into thin, circular slices and
polished to form wafers.
• A wafer goes through a multi-step fabrication
process in a clean room, where dust, particles
and even ions in water are tightly controlled.
• De-ionized water (more broadly speaking,
ultrapure water) used in semiconductor
manufacturing.
 Overview of Microfabrication
• Using a machine-automated photolithography
process called step-and-repeat, many identical
units can be made on a same wafer with high
linewidth resolution (0.1 mm or smaller in
commercial processes).
• Many identical devices, called dies, are made on
one given wafer in a single pass.
Overview of Microfabrication
 Overview of Microfabrication
• These dies have spacings between them so that
they can be mechanically cut and separated.
• Each cut die, called a chip, can then be
electrically connected and encapsulated for
commercial resale. The process of incorporating
a loose die to a housing and a system is called
packaging.
• In a given process, a percentage of dies with
satisfactory performance is called the process
yield.
• A chip is placed into a package, which is then
mounted on a circuit board.
Overview of Microfabrication
Photolithography
 Photolithography
• The goal of photolithography is to produce fine
features on wafer surfaces.
• A wafer is held on a rotating stage. Photoresist is
applied to the center of the wafer at rest position.
• The wafer is then spun at high speed, causing the
photoresist to move towards the edge of the
wafer under centrifugal forces.
• After the wafer spinning is stopped, a uniform
thin layer of photoresist is coated on the front
surface of a wafer.
 Photolithography
• Process variables include the wafer spinning
speed, the viscosity of the resist, and the types of
resists.
• A lithography patterning procedure involves
multiple steps
• A wafer is first covered with a uniform thin layer
of resist.
• A mask, consisting of a transparent substrate
(e.g., glass or quartz) with opaque features, are
brought close to the resist-coated wafer.
 Photolithography
• High energy, collimated light rays strikes the
mask-wafer assembly.
• Resist regions that are not covered by opaque
features are exposed, changing the chemical
composition of the resist.
• The exposure by light causes the resist to be
more soluble in a wet chemical developer.
• This allows the opaque features on the mask to
be faithfully transferred to the wafer
Thin Film Deposition