Highlights of iNEMI 2013 technology roadmaps

Biologically inspired electrostatic artificial muscles for insect-sized robots

“…Because vias do not contribute to force generation but require a finite space, the fraction of the actuator area that contributes to force generation decreases (Figure 7) (e.g., when the width of the via section is 475 µ m, the actuation area is reduced by more than 20% of the total area if the actuator film is 2 mm wide and 4 mm long). Moreover, the hole drilling and plating processes for vias are more challenging than the fabrication of electrodes in a conductive layer, and hence the via holes and connection pads are usually much larger than the electrodes and space the manufacturer can make (Holden, 2009; Lau and Chang, 2000; Pfahl et al, 2012). For example, a typical printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer can produce electrodes with pitches of approximately 50 µ m, but their minimum available via holes and pads are 100 and 250 µ m, respectively (Lau and Chang, 2000).…”

“…First, the effective ratio and actuation force per area decreases rapidly as the size shrinks to several millimeters, because the non-actuation parts (e.g., micro-vias) cannot scale down proportionally and results in a reduced force. Second, the fabrication of smaller electrodes and interconnects between layers results in manufacturing difficulties, increased cost, and lower reliability (Holden, 2009; Ning, 2017; Pfahl et al, 2012). Finally, fixturing and assembly of the actuation films on the mesoscale is challenging, because common joining methods used in macroscopic systems, such as screws and nuts, are not practical at this scale, and larger assembly errors result in reduced output force.…”

Accelerated aging and thermal cycling of low melting temperature alloys as wet thermal interface materials

“…Therefore, international electronics manufacturing initiative (iNEMI) declared thermal management a research priority in 2013 [4]. One of the crucial thermal management concerns in electronics cooling involves reducing the thermal resistance between the microprocessor chip and its accompanying heat sink by use of a thermal interface material (TIM).…”