Deep dry etching of SOI for silicon micromachined structures

McNie, Mark E.; King, D.O.; Nayar, V.; Ward, Michael; Burdess, J.S.; Quinn, C.; Blackstone, S.

doi:10.1109/soi.1997.634932

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Improved ring symmetry would increase the secondary response towards that of the matched response in table 4 and reduce the mechanical coupling towards zero, making low rate of turn measurements possible. Improved fabrication is possible by employing the excellent aspect ratios achieved by deep reactive ion etching [20] together with finer line photolithography. This approach will allow devices to be made to the original design and compensation for the variation in the crystalline properties of silicon with direction to be dealt with by varying the width of the ring with angle.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Issues associated with the design, fabrication and testing of a crystalline silicon ring gyroscope with electromagnetic actuation and sensing

Harris

Burdess

Wood

et al. 1998

J. Micromech. Microeng.

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The design of a single-crystal silicon ring with electromagnetic actuation and sensing, for the purpose of producing a gyroscope, is presented which takes into account the anisotropic nature of silicon. Ring structures are fabricated using a reactive ion etching process which is compatible with CMOS fabrication technology. Three methods of reducing electrical coupling between the drive and the sense are considered. The modes of vibration of the ring are measured as a function of frequency and drive amplitude and interpreted in terms of the modes of an ideal structure. Unwanted asymmetry in the ring structure resulting from the fabrication process is responsible for both a frequency mismatch and a large mechanical coupling between the principal modes of the ring and this limits the response as a gyroscope. Improvements to the fabrication of the ring are identified.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Issues associated with the design, fabrication and testing of a crystalline silicon ring gyroscope with electromagnetic actuation and sensing

Harris

Burdess

Wood

et al. 1998

J. Micromech. Microeng.

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“…However, the fabrication process is not mature, especially for thick SOI layers [1] because of the two major problems. One is the notching effect (as shown in Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

MEMS deep-RIE fabrication process and device characterization

Zhang

Asundi

et al. 2003

SPIE Proceedings

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The notching and stiction problem, which widely exists in silicon on insulator (SOI) microstructure fabrication, were resolved in this study. In this paper, a new plasma trench technique that is based on the deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) process is proposed. In this modified process, the deep reactive ion etching (RIE) was divided into several steps, where conformal plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) oxide coating, and directional oxide etch back were employed to prevent the notching effect and the reactive ion etching (RIE) lag effect is also improved. Therefore, the microstructures regardless of the feature sizes could be realized. The stiction problem is eliminated by using dry chemical release replacing wet release in this approach, where the notching effect is used. The notching or footing effect was exploited for attaining the lateral etch following the deployment of the anisotropic plasma etching of the inductively coupled plasma (ICP). This method was proven useful for both the uniform and non-uniform feature designs. With this novel process, the high aspect ratio beams can be obtained. The thickness of the silicon layer is 75 µm, while the depth of the beams is 70 µm where the 5 µm silicon was etched to suspend the movable beams. The aspect ratio is as high as 35. Trenches with very different widths of 2.5 µm and 35 µm are also achieved at the same time.

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“…Linearly-coupled devices have been used as electromechanical filters [20] and orthogonallycoupled devices have been used as x-y stages for atomic force microscopy (AFM) applications [21][22][23][24]. Early devices were formed from thin (2-10 µm) mechanical layers; more robust components are now being developed [25,26], based either on bonded silicon-on-insulator [27,28], deep dry etching using an inductively coupled plasma [29,30] or on metals electroplated in deep molds [31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristic modes of electrostatic comb-driveX-Ymicroactuators

Harness¹,

Syms²

1999

J. Micromech. Microeng.

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The design of dual axis microengineered comb-drive electrostatic actuators is investigated. Experimental measurements of diode-isolated bulk micromachined x-y stages with a folded, single-flexure suspension show the presence of unwanted two-dimensional vibrational mode patterns. A combination of coupled-mode and finite-element analysis is used to explain the existence of the spurious modes, and good agreement is obtained with the experimental response provided that the intrinsic stress is taken into account. It is shown that improved performance can be obtained simply by doubling the number of suspension flexures.

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Deep dry etching of SOI for silicon micromachined structures

Cited by 8 publications

References 1 publication

Issues associated with the design, fabrication and testing of a crystalline silicon ring gyroscope with electromagnetic actuation and sensing

Issues associated with the design, fabrication and testing of a crystalline silicon ring gyroscope with electromagnetic actuation and sensing

MEMS deep-RIE fabrication process and device characterization

Characteristic modes of electrostatic comb-driveX-Ymicroactuators

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