MEMS: Invention to Market

Invention->Market
Creation of a new market is slow.

Market->Invention (easier)
What is the existing competition?
Impact will it take over the market?

Manufacturing
Sales
Modeling as in this course: Analysis of options,
performance, price. Planning of R+D, business
plan.

Device Categories
Technology Demonstrations
Test device concept
Test fabrication technology
Small # of devices/low yield ok

Research Tools
Small # of devices, often custom.

Commercial Products
Large # of devices, high yield, low cost,
packaging all critical.

Transducers, Sensors, and

Actuators
Transducers: Generally convert one
form of energy to another. (Not
generally conserving energy.)
Could be a sensor or an actuator.

Sensors measure something and

provide an output signal. Usually
electrical, but sometimes optical or
mechanical.
Actuators move something. (But what
would an LED be?)

Domains
Thermal (temperature, heat, heat flow)
Mechanical (force, pressure, velocity,
acceleration, position)
Chemical (concentration, composition,
reaction rate)
Magnetic (magnetic field intensity,
magnetization)
Radient (intensity, wavelength,
polarization, phase)
Electrical (voltage, current, charge,
resistance)

Examples of Sensors and

Actuators
Position Sensors
Resistive strain sensor. (dimensions change,
R=l/A)
Piezoresistive strain sensor. (dimensions and
change)
Sensitivity measured by the gauge factor
GF=relative resistance change/strain=(R/R)/
(L/L)=R/R
GF=~2 for metals (mostly geometry, some
piezoresistance)
GF=~100 for semiconductors (piezoresistive)

 Piezoelectric materials (Curies, 1880)

Electric field <-> strain (deformation)

Polarization <-> stress
Sensor/Actuator
In your watch, Quartz (but this is changing!!
(Si Time))
Also pyroelectric materials have
temperature<->polarization.

 Magnetostrictive Actuators
Materials expand/contract with magnetic
field
Similar to piezoelectric effect
Terfenol-D Tb0.27Dy0.73Fe1.9 -> strain of 2X10-3
or 0.2%.

Permanent magnetic materials

S
Micromirror,
microrelay,
micromotor
N
S
N

 RF MEMS Switching or changing

capacitance or building
micromachined RF components.

Also ink jets!

 Biological Actuators Future, nano,

research stage.
Biomedical Sensors and Actuators
Neural probes
Artificial retinas
Hearing prosthetics (in use)
Living cells as sensors (chips for
culturing and measuring cell properties
(see Kovaks, for example)

Chemical Actuators Electrochemical

actuators using polypyrrole.

 Chemical Sensors many types!

Chemireisistors (organic and inorganic)
Chemicapacitors
Micromachined Calorimeter (combustible
gasses or explosive particles)
Micro hot plate (R(T) for several materials.
Chem FETs
Can do the same thing with many ion sensitive
membranes.

Pd Sensitive to hydrogen at 10 ppm

Problem: Drift

 Pumps
Mechanical
Electrophoretic/Electroosmotic, used in
separations of DNA and protein fragments.
V

mobile +ions
immobile -ions

+++++++
---------

Neutrals dragged along by

mobile ions. Flow nearly
constant velocity across
channel.

 Optical Transducers
MANY types!
Overlap between commercial electronics and MEMS.
Thermal (Bolometers)
Light heats element, causes resistance change.

Fabry Perot etalon type devices (interference) for

changing reflection. Like microspectrometer shown
previously.
E-ink displays (MEMS?)
Thermocouple
Golay cell
Light -> heat -> expanding gas -> moves something -> signal.

Spectrometers
Diffractive sensors.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

Preview of a case study (or

project).
Capacitive Accelerometer, p. 497,
Senturia.
Fabrication Technology
sets limits on

structures.
Lumped element modeling in different domains.
Capacitive transducer/actuator
Elasticity, contact mechanics, stiction
Structures springs/beams.
Fluids squeeze film damping
Electronics, feedback
System dynamics
Noise