MEMS sensitive structure sand and dust friction contamination test and electrical variation characteristics

Abstract

The impact of dust pollution on the sensitive components of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) has been a hot topic in current reliability research. However, previous studies have rarely focused on the fundamental analysis of the influence of dust pollutants on the sensitive components of MEMS, and these research results lack universality. This paper aims to present experimental results on the electrical characteristic changes of MEMS thermal sensitive resistors based on dust friction, providing a more detailed description and explanation. Through dust friction experiments, we investigated the effects of dust particle size and relative humidity on the electrical characteristics of MEMS devices. We chose the resistance value output as the electrical characteristic parameter, based on the performance exhibited during the dust friction experiments. We conducted a detailed analysis of the reasons for the changes in the electrical characteristic parameters. The research results showed that when dust particles settle on the device, the failure mode of the device manifests as resistance drift. The inducing factor is the electrostatic current generated by the friction between dust particles, which enters the sensitive components through the principle of electrostatic dissipation. The measurement principle leads to changes in the resistance value measurement, although the actual resistance value does not change. The magnitude of this electrostatic current is directly proportional to the size of the particles and inversely proportional to the relative humidity. This finding provides theoretical guidance for identifying failure-inducing factors in MEMS failure modes.