Silicon-compatible micromachining provides a low cost monolithic solution for the integration of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). In the last years, C M P (the French MultiProject Wafer Service) has made available technological solutions f o r the fabrication of CMOS-compatible MEMS. Numerous monolithic devices have been fabricated using this service. The inspection of failed devices has allowed the identification of the most typical failure mechanisms and design errors f o r this type of MEMS. This valuable in-formation, together with a detailed analysis of the fabrication processes, is used in this paper to provide a classification of faults in silicon-compatible MEMS which can later be used for fault simulation and testing.

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CMP has been providing infrastructures for integrated circuits manufacturing since 1981. These infrastructures have been extended to provide services for MEMS manufacturing. These services are available to Universities and Companies

This paper presents a fully integrated solution for the development of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems which covers component libraries, design tools and designs methodologies which are used in conjunction with conventional design automation tools. This solution enables system houses in wireless and optical communications and consumers electronics markets to reduce their internal development costs and significantly accelerate their product development cycle

Suspended thermal MEMS is one of the major domains of application of CMOS-compatible bulk-micromachining technologies. In some applications, a tradeoff much be reached between the mechanical strength of the microstructure and the thermal losses through the support beams. This paper illustrates how suspended MEMS can be strengthened by means of additional support beams which have a very high thermal impedance, thus having a very small impact in the thermal behavior of the microstructure. A high thermal impedance beam can be considered as a new MEMS design cell. The use of this cell in the design of an electrothermal converter with long time constant is illustrated.