In the beginning stage of MITI micromachine project, the committee on the standardization established in Micromachine Center recognized the importance of measurement technique for the promotion and the systematization of the micromachine technology. Micromachine Center is the organizing body for private sectors working in the MITT micromachine project which started in 199 1 .MITI stands for Ministry of International Trade and Industry in Japan. In order to know the requirements on the measurement technologies, the questionnaire was organized by the measurement working group in the committee. This talk covers the questionnaire and its results, and some research results obtained at National Research Laboratory of Metrology working as a member in the project.
IntroductionIt is a world wide trend that many governments in industrialized countries are promoting large scale R&D program toward miniaturization. NRLM, National Research Laboratory of Metrology, Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, Ministry of International Trade and Industry might be the first measurement standard research laboratory that participated in one of the above programs. Many people say that measurement is very important in the micromachine technology development. The reasons might be, in my opinion considered as follows: 1) The advent of silicon micromachining has produced silicon sensors. The influence of these silicon sensors to every aspect of technology is enormous. 2) Micromachine is to great extent a machine for measurement. It is hardly possible to think that the microsystem is for power generation or for manufacturing of large scale structures.3) The governing fundamental principles and the principal physical quantities are different from those in the conventional world, leading to the establishment of the new measurement technique and the measurement standard for the quantities dismissed in the past. 4) Mass production of silicon sensors explicitly amplified and clarified the fact that the conventional measurement and evaluation technique is not perfect. The typical example might be accelerometers. 5) Almost no established evaluation method exists in the micromachine field. Force, torque, bonding, three dimensional shape etc. 6) The validity of measurement and evaluation technique or instruments from the view point of micromachine is not yet investigated at all. We have not yet started the discussion whether the specimen size miniaturized version of the conventional testing technique is reasonable. Commercially available instruments are also not clear if they have enough performance as indicated in the specifications, because miniaturization demands higher accuracy and wider dynamic range, for example. 7) The essential difference between micromachine technology and the conventional technology amplifies the importance of measurement and measurement standards. The typical example might be the determination of material constant in the user side. This comes from that material characteristics depend on fabrication facilities. ...