No abstract

▪ Abstract  Polysilicon surface micromachining is advancing significantly and many new applications are moving beyond the prototyping phase. Recent technical successes are leading to excitement concerning various uses of devices in optical, wireless, sensor, and many other areas. Incorporation of state-of-the-art integrated circuit (IC) fabrication methods, such as planarization by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), has enabled extension to a five-level technology. This has opened significant design space, especially for microactuator applications. Recent advancement of in situ microdiagnostics for materials and surface properties has enhanced our understanding of device reliability and performance and will allow devices to operate near well-known materials limits. New IC-compatible materials will further enhance the capabilities of microsystems in terms of performance, reliability, and operation in harsh environments.

No abstract

No abstract

This work describes the performance of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) microfluidic DNA purification devices with embedded microfabricated posts, functionalized with chitosan. PMMA is attractive as a substrate for creating high surface area (SA) posts for DNA capture because X-ray lithography can be exploited for extremely reproducible fabrication of high SA structures. However, this advantage is offset by the delicate nature of the posts when attempting bonding to create a closed system, and by the challenge of functionalizing the PMMA surface with a group that invokes DNA binding. Methods are described for covalent functionalization of the post surfaces with chitosan that binds DNA in a pH-dependent manner, as well as for bonding methods that avoid damaging the underlying post structure. A number of geometric posts designs are explored, with the goal of identifying post structures that provide the requisite surface area without a concurrent rise in fluidic resistance that promotes device failure. Initial proof-of-principle is shown by recovery of prepurified human genomic DNA (hgDNA), with real-world utility illustrated by purifying hgDNA from whole blood and demonstrating it to be PCR-amplifiable.

Recently, a great deal of interest has developed in manufacturing processes that allow the monolithic integration of microelectromechanical structures (MEMS) with driving, control, and signal processing electronics. This integration promises to improve the performance of micromechanical devices as well as the cost of manufacturing, packaging, and instrumenting these devices by combining the micromechanical devices with an electronic sub-system in the same manufacturing and packaging process. For example, Analog Devices has developed and marketed an accelerometer' which illustrates the viability and commercial potential of this integration. They accomplished this task by interleaving, combining, and customizing their manufacturing processes which produce the micromechanical devices with the processes that produce the electronics. Researchers at Berkeley2 have developed a modular integrated approach in which the aluminum metallization of CMOS is replaced with tungsten to enable the CMOS to withstand subsequent micromechanical processing.In order to maintain the modularity of the Berkeley approach but overcome some of the manufacturing challenges of their CMOS-first approach, we are developing a MEMS-first process. This process places the micromechanical devices in a shallow trench, planarizes the wafer, and seals the micromechanical devices in the trench. These wafers with the completed, planarized micromechanical devices are then used as starting material for a conventional CMOS process. At Sandia, both 2 pm and 0.5 pm CMOS technologies are available for integration; although, the 2 pm process is being used as the development vehicle for the integrated technology. Since this integration approach does not modify the CMOS processing flow, the wafers with the subsurface micromechanical devices can also be sent to a foundry for CMOS processing. Furthermore, the topology of multiple polysilicon layers does not complicate CMOS lithography. Figure 1 is a schematic cross-section of our integrated technology. A shallow trench (-6 pm) is etched in (100) silicon wafers using a KOH etchant. A silicon nitride film is deposited to form a dielectric layer on the bottom of the trench. Sacrificial oxide and multiple layers of polysilicon are then deposited and patterned in a standard surface micromachining process. The shallow trenches are then filled with a series of oxide depositions and planarized with chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP). The entire structure is then annealed to relieve stress in the structural polysilicon and sealed with a silicon nitride cap. Conventional CMOS processing is performed. Additional masks are used at the end of the process to open the nitride cap over the micromechanical layer for metal contact to polysilicon studs and for release of the micromechanical structures. Figure 2 shows a released accelerometer fabricated in a trench. Figure 3 is a close-up view of the polysilicon interconnects on the bottom of the trench leading to the polysilicon stud that connects to the CMOS metal. In order...

No abstract

No abstract