MEMS Reliability: On-Chip Testing for the Characterization of the Out-of-Plane Polysilicon Strength

Abstract

Polycrystalline silicon is a brittle material, and its strength results are stochastically linked to microscale (or even nanoscale) defects, possibly dependent on the grain size and morphology. In this paper, we focus on the out-of-plane tensile strength of columnar polysilicon. The investigation has been carried out through a combination of a newly proposed setup for on-chip testing and finite element analyses to properly interpret the collected data. The experiments have aimed to provide a static loading to a stopper, exploiting electrostatic actuation to move a massive shuttle against it, up to failure. The failure mechanism observed in the tested devices has been captured by the numerical simulations. The data have been then interpreted by the Weibull theory for three different stopper sizes, leading to an estimation of the reference out-of-plane strength of polysilicon on the order of 2.8–3.0 GPa, in line with other results available in the literature.

Modeling and Reliability Analysis of MEMS Gyroscope Rotor Parameters under Vibrational Stress

“…To understand how vibrational conditions impact the deterioration of MEMS gyroscope rotor characteristics, we developed an accelerated degradation model. This model utilized distributional assumptions to predict how rotor parameters change over time under stress [22,23].…”