This paper presents a new process flow for the fabrication of Air gap Insulated Microstructures (AIM) with strengthened interconnection beams based on standard single crystal silicon wafers. The main focus on the new development was set on the attributes of reliability and fatigue. As a result of our investigations, the interconnection beams were identified as weakest point in the system. To improve the quality of the beams, several material stacks with well defined properties were tested in order to find a suitable material stack for the interconnection beams instead of pure aluminum. The new process flow enables the use of multi-layered beams without loosing any of the advantages of the AIM technology and also without increasing the number of masks.
Silicon is the dominating material for the fabrication of MEMS devices, especially in high volume production. However, metals with their typical properties are used to enhance or enable the functionality of MEMS. In contrast to microelectronic technologies, not only the electrical but also the mechanical and optical behavior of metals could be helpful. New requirements in MEMS technologies demand optimized processes in metallization for the fabrication of microstructures. This paper presents some metallization applications and related technology development in the field of MEMS.
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