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Taken together, recent advances in microelectromechanical systems, wireless mesh networks, digital circuits, and battery technology have made the notion of autonomous pico air vehicles viable. In this work we describe the core technologies enabling these future vehicles as well as propose two possible future platforms. We draw on recent research on high thrust density atmospheric ion thrusters, microfabricated...
In this work, a system assembly technology will be presented that allows an effective mechanical decoupling of the MEMS element from the environment while maintaining minimal package footprint and cost. It utilizes a Si interposer with planar spring structures for an independent suspension of all interconnects to the MEMS element. The design of the planar springs was optimized for maximum stability...
Smaller footprint, thinner packages and simultaneously increased functionality are general requests for all electronic products and as well hold true for MEMS sensors. Current standard packaging technology for MEMS sensors is stacking the ASIC and MEMS silicon dies on a substrate. The sensitive dies are then either protected by over-molding or by attaching some sort of lid. Typical substrate materials...
An aluminum-nitride (AlN) based energy-harvesting MEMS sensor is developed. We aimed at realizing energy-harvesting sensor with functional feature of wide-band response at low-frequency vibration domain, owing to the high-power density of vibration sources energy in a particular low frequency with several Hz deviations. By simplifying and analyzing the vibration module of the sensor structure, a special...
In our digital world, microelectromechanical system (MEMS) are here to stay and will open the doors for the next exciting wave in the advancement of technology such as the Internet of Things (IoT). The MEMS devices in wafer forms are fabricated in minute details and eventually singulated into individual units to act as sensing or actuation elements in various applications such as accelerometer and...
A MEMS-based gas chromatograph (GC) front-end for a mass spectrometer has been developed for space applications. The GC uses Molecular Vapor Deposition (MVD) to achieve a uniform coating of the GC column. Particular attention has been paid to the fluidic connections of the MEMS to the external tubing.
This paper reviews the last two decades design, fabrication and characterization advances on high performance MEMS-based gas chromatography systems, the related architectures and their constitutive building blocks, which include preconcentrators, microvalves and related sample injection devices, micro-columns, and detectors. Micro-GCs hold potential for rapid analysis of volatile organic compounds...
Silicon-based MEMS microthruster matrix has gained great attention as a micro-impulsion system in recent years, especially in application of attitude control of the nanosatellites. Although silicon serves well as the structural material for microthruster matrix in several aspects, its ability to resist ablation is rather weak. In this paper, SiC membrane is introduced to the surface of micro-chambers...
Wafer-level thermocompression bonding (TCB) using aluminum (Al) is presented as a hermetic sealing method for MEMS. The process is a CMOS compatible alternative to TCB using metals like gold (Au) and copper (Cu), which are problematic with respect to cross contamination in labs. Au and Cu are commonly used for TCB and the oxidation of these metals is limited (Au) or easily controlled (Cu). However,...
Based on the micro electronic mechanical system (MEMS) processing, a large size 2-D scanning mirror driven by electromagnetic force was designed and implemented in this paper. Here we fabricated micromirror with the silicon wafer and electroplated soft Ni film on the backside of mirror. The no-coil structural micro-mirror prevented heat produced on the mirror effectively. The scanning resonant frequency...
This paper presents a monolithic approach for the integration of silicon nanowires (Si NWs) with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The process is demonstrated for the case of co-fabrication of Si NWs with a 10-µm-thick MEMS on the same silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. MEMS is designed in the form of a characterization platform with an electrostatic actuator and a mechanical amplifier spanned...
This paper presents evaluation of the effective Young's modulus of electroplated gold micro-cantilevers. Young's modulus is one of the fundamental parameters to design MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) components. Gold electroplated MEMS structures can be used to develop highly-sensitive MEMS sensors, such as accelerometers. With a resonant frequency method, we evaluate gold-electroplated Ti/Au...
We present a novel MEMS capacitance accelerometer with single wafer symmetrical double-sided folded-beams structure. The highly symmetrical 8 folded-beams on single wafer is designed and fabricated by Deep Reactive Ion Etch (DRIE) and KOH wet etching from both sides of the silicon wafer. The sandwich differential capacitive accelerometer is formed by three-layer silicon-silicon bonding. The excellent...
The proposed MEMS-technology viscosity sensor solves two major drawbacks associated with current state of the art MEMS viscosity sensors, such as: (1) Functional complexity and integration of external components for actuation and subsequent data acquisition; (2) Fabrication incompatibilities with CMOS processes. The proposed solution is based on thermally induced actuation, subsequent vibrations of...
Sub-micron wide Si rib patterns with a smooth sidewall and a high aspect ratio have been successfully formed using originally developed dry-etching apparatus with a high-density inductive coupled plasma source. The developed technique is applied for MEMS and X-ray devices.
This paper presents for the first time the design and characterization of an ultra-compact 3-axis roll-pitch-yaw gyroscope which employs a single vibrational element with a torsional drive mode and a multi-directional sense modes. Implemented in wafer-level Epitaxial Silicon Encapsulation (Epi-Seal) process, device occupies an area of 1.2 mm2. Initial characterization reported in this paper includes...
This paper presents a novel, versatile process for the fabrication of wide and deep cavities for silicon MEMS devices without the need for wafer bonding. Instead of filling large trenches with sacrificial materials before encapsulation or directly using wafer bonding, we present a method that utilizes isotropic etching with XeF2 gas through a thin silicon dioxide film prior to the deposition of encapsulation...
In this work, we propose a novel temperature compensation method that utilizes a tri-mode operation scheme to generate a temperature-stable frequency reference over a large temperature range. Three resonant modes are excited simultaneously on a highly doped silicon MEMS resonator, and the unique TCf characteristic of each mode is fitted to a parabolic curve. A linear combination of the three frequencies...
This paper presents a high frequency silicon resonator design possessing a quadratic temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) profile with high-temperature turnover point. The design takes the advantages of a square Lamé mode and extends it to a distributed arrangement, to allow efficient transduction while scaling up the frequency. A Distributed Lamé mode resonator (DLR) with frequency exceeding...
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