A Methodology to Study Wafer Level Response of Silicon Microstructures to Mechanical Shock

Abstract

The Microelectromechanical Systems literature is dominated by discussion of device and process innovation. Reliability issues have received little attention and yet they are a critical prerequisite to successful commercialization. The explosive growth of the field in the last decade, first in the academic arena and now in the commercial sensor industry, demands a well orchestrated effort to understand and quantify the reliability of silicon microstructures. A systematic method to characterize the response of silicon microstructures to mechanical shock has been developed and applied. This method can be used to characterize other stress types and process sequences as well.