Long and narrow beams of single crystal silicon were made by surrounding them with trenches of different width followed by dry release etch. The beams were coated nonconformally during fabrication. Depending on the asymmetry of the films coated onto the beam sidewalls they tend to bend laterally. This deflection has been analyzed experimentally and by FEM-Simulations.
We present a novel micromachining approach for on chip three-axis capacitive high aspect ratio acceleration sensors made from standard silicon wafers. The patented AIM (air gap insulated microstructures) technology with their excellent device properties regarding temperature behavior, capacitive sensitivity and reliability was modified for enabling out-of-plane differential measurements. Therefore electrodes with different heights have been patterned by using one additional masking layer. Using the presented AIM technology, high performance vibration sensors with low temperature sensitivity of typically 40 to 110 ppm/K sensitivity change and ± 0.9 mg/K offset failure at a sensitivity of 10 fF/g (25 fF/g for in-plane sensors), a measurement range of ± 50 g and a bandwidth from DC to 1 kHz were fabricated. The sensors have been packaged hermetically by seal glass bonding
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.
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