Chapter 2

OVERVIEW OF MEMS

2.1 MEMS and Microsystems

The term MEMS is an abbreviation of microelectromechanical system.

MEMS contains components of sizes in 1 micrometer to 1 millimeter.

The core element in MEMS generally consists of two principal components: a

sensing or land actuating element and a signal transduction unit. Figure 2.1 illustrates
the functional relationship between sensing element and the transduction unit in a
microsensor.

Input Transduction Output

signal unit signal

Figure 2.1 MEMS as a microsensor

Microsensors have the advantages of being sensitive and accurate with

minimal amount of required sample substance. They can also be mass produced in
batches with large volumes.

Figure 2.2 illustrates the functional relationship between the actuating element
and the transduction unit in a microactuator. The transduction unit converts the input
power supply into the form such as voltage for a transducer, which functions as the
actuating element.

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 Output Microactuating Transduction
action element unit

Figure 2.2 MEMS as a microactuator

A microsystem is an engineering system that contains MEMS components that

are designed to perform specific engineering functions. Major components of a
microsystem are microsensors, microactuators, and signal transduction and
processing unit. Functional relationship of these three components is illustrated in
figure 2.3.

Power
supply

Sensor

I Microsystem I

Figure 2.3 Components of a Microsystem

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2.2 Materials for MEMS

A well-rounded understanding of MEMS requires a mature knowledge of the

materials used to construct the devices, as the material properties of each component
can influence the device performance [9,14]. As the fabrication ofMEMS structures
often depends on the use of structural, sacrificial and masking materials on a common
substrate, issues related to etch selectivity, adhesion, microstructure and a host of
other properties are important design considerations. The important materials used for
silicon micromachining are presented below.

2.2.1 Single- Crystal Silicon

The conjoining of Si IC processing with Si micromachining techniques during

the 1980s marked the advent of MEMS, and positioned Si as the primary material for
MEMS. There is little question that Si is the most widely known semicoducting
material in use today. Single-crystal Si has a diamond (cubic) crystal structure. It has
an electronic band gap of 1.1 eV, and like many semiconducting materials, it can be
doped with impurities to alter its conductivity. Phosphorus (P) is a common dopant
for n-type Si and boron (B) is commonly used to produce p-type Si. A solid-phase
silicon oxide (SiOz) that is chemically stable under most conditions can readily be
grown on Si surfaces. Mechanically, Si is a brittle material with a Young's modulus
of about 190Gpa, a value that is comparable to steel (210 Gpa). Si is among the most
abundant elements on the Earth that can readily be refined from sand to produce
electronic-grade material. Mature industrial processes exist for the low-cost
production of single-crystal Si wafered substrates that have large surface areas (>8 in.
diameter) and very low defect densities.

Single-crystal Si is perhaps the most versatile material for bulk

micromachining, owing to the availability of well-characterized anisotropic etches
and etch-mask materials. For surface micromachining applications, single-crystal Si
substrates are used as mechanical platforms on which device structures are fabricated,
whether they are made from Si or other materials. In the case of Si-based integrated
MEMS devices, single-crystal Si is the primary electronic material from which the IC
devices are fabricated.

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2.2.2 Polysilicon

The most common material system for the fabrication of surface

micromachined MEMS devices utilizes polycrystalline Si (polysilicon) as the primary
structural material, Si02 as the sacrificial material and ShN4 for electrical isolation of
device structures. Heavy reliance on this material system stems in part from the fact
that these three materials find uses in the fabrication of ICs and, as a result, film can
be doped during or after film deposition and etching technologies are readily and
widely available. Like single-crystal Si, polysilicon can be doped using standard IC
processing techniques. Si0 2 can be grown or deposited over a broad temperature
range (200 to I 150°C) to meet various process and material requirements. For surface
micromachined structures, polysilicon is an attractive material because it has the
mechanical properties that are comparable to single-crystal Si. The required
processing technology has been developed for IC applications, and it is resistant to
Si02 etchants.

During the fabrication of micromechanical devices, polysilicon films typically

undergo one or more high-temperature processing steps (e.g., doping, thermal
oxidation, annealing) after deposition. Smooth surfaces are desired for many
mechanical structures, as defects associated with surface roughness can act as
initiating points of structural failure. Like single-crystal Si, oxidation of polysilicon
can be modeled by using process simulation software.

Minimizing the maximum required temperature and duration of high-

temperature processing steps is important for the fabrication of micromechanical
components on wafers that contain temperature-sensitive layers.

In polysilicon micromechanical structures, the residual stress in the films can

greatly affect the performance of the device. Annealing can be used to reduce the
compressive stress in as-deposited polysilicon films.

2.2.3 Silicon Dioxide

Si02 can be grown thermally on Si substrates as well as deposited using a

variety of processes to satisfy a wide range of requirements. In polysilicon surface
micromachining, Si02 is used as a sacrificial material, as it can be easily dissolved
using etchants that do not attack polysilicon. In a less prominent role, Si02 is used as
an etch mask for dry etching of thick polysilicon films, as it is chemically resistant to

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dry polysilicon etch chemistries. Thermal Si02, Low Temperature Oxide (LTD) and
Phospho Silicate Glass (PSG) are electrical insulators suitable for many MEMS
applications.

2.2.4 Silicon Nitride

ShN4 is widely used in MEMS for electrical isolation, surface passivation,

etch masking and as a mechanical material. Two deposition methods are commonly
used to deposit ShN4 thin films: Low Pressure Chemical Vapour Deposition
(LPCVD) and Plasma Enhanced CVD (PECVD). LPCVD ShN4 is commonly used
as an insulating layer to isolate the device structures from the substrate and from the
other device structures, because it is a good insulator with a resistivity of 10 16 Q-cm
and a field breakdown limit of 107 V/cm.

Low-stress silicon nitride has been successfully used as a structural material in

a surface micromachining process that use polysilicon as the sacrificial material.

2.2.5 Metals

Metals are used in many different capacities, ranging from hard etch masks
and thin film conducting interconnects to structural elements in microsensors and
microactuators. Metallic thin films can be deposited using a wide range of deposition
techniques, the most common being evaporation, sputtering, CVD and electroplating.
Such a wide range of deposition methods makes metal thin films one of the most
versatile classes of materials used in MEMS devices.

2.3 MEMS Fabrication processes

Many of the fabrication processes used in producing integrated circuits have

been adopted to create the complex three-dimensional shapes of many MEMS /
Microsystems.

2.3.1 Photolithography

Photolithography process involves the use of an optical image and a

photosensitive film to produce a pattern on a substrate. Photolithography is one
of the most important steps in microfabrication. In Microsystems, however,
photolithography is used to set patterns for masks for cavity etching in bulk
micromachining, or for thin film deposition and etching of sacrificial layers in surface

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micromachining, as well as for the primary circuitry of electrical signal transduction
in sensors and actuators.

A photoresist is first coated onto the flat surface of the substrate. The
substrate with photoresist is then exposed to a set of lights through a transparent mask
with the desired patterns. Masks used for this purpose are often made of quartz.
Photoresist materials change their solubility when they are exposed to light.
Photoresists that become more soluble under light are classified as positive
photoresists, whereas the negative photoresists become more soluble under the
shadow.

2.3.2 Ion implantation

Ion implantation involves "forcing" free atoms, such as boron or phosphorus,

with charged particles into a substrate, thereby achieving imbalance between the
number of protons and electrons in the resulting atomic structure.

2.3.3 Diffusion

The diffusion process is often used in microelectronics for the introduction of

a controlled amount of foreign materials (dopants) into the selected regions of another
material (the substrate). Unlike ion implantation, diffusion is a slow doping process.
Diffusion takes place at elevated temperatures.

2.3.4 Oxidation

Oxidation IS a very important process ill both microelectronic and

microsystem fabrication. Materials for dielectric films involve ceramics those grown
over the substrate's surface such as silicon dioxide and silicon nitride.

2.3.5 Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD)

Depositing thin films over the surface of substrates and other MEMS and
microsystem components is a common and necessary practice in micromachining.
Unlike the diffusion and thermal oxidation processes, deposition adds thin films to,
instead of consuming, the substrates.

In general, Low Pressure Chemical Vapor Depositions (LPCVD) provides a

means for depositing thick (>2 ).lm) Si02 films at temperatures much lower than
thermal oxidation. An advantage of the LPCVD process is that dopant gases can be
included in the flow of source gases in order to dope the as-deposited Si02 films.

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2.3.6 Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) - Sputtering

Sputtering is a process that is often used to deposit thin metallic films of

o 0
the order of 100 A thick (1 A = 10-10 m) on substrate surfaces. The sputtering
process is carried out with plasma under very low pressure (i.e., in high vacuum at
around 5xlO- 7 torr). This process involves low temperature.

Plasma is made of positively charged gas ion, and plasma can be produced by
either high-voltage dc sources or RF (Radio-Frequency) sources. The positive ions of
the metal in an inert argon gas carrier bombard the surface of the target at such a high
velocity that the momentum transfer on impingement causes the metal ions to
evaporate. The metal ion is then led to the substrate surface and is deposited after
condensation.

2.3.7 Deposition By Epitaxy

Epitaxy is the extension of a single-crystal substrate by growing a film of the

same single-crystal material.

2.3.8 Etching

Etching is one of the most important processes in microfabrication. It

involves the removal of materials in desired areas by physical or chemical means. In
micromachining, etching is used to shape the geometry of microcomponents in
MEMS and microsystems. Of the two common types of etching techniques
mentioned above, the physical etching is usually referred to as dry etching or plasma
etching, whereas the chemical etching is referred to as wet etching.

The chemical solutions used in etching, or etchants, attack the parts of the
substrate that are not protected by the mask. The mask used in micromachining may
be either the photoresists or Si02 for substrates in HF solutions. A large number of
dry etch processes are available to pattern single-crystal Si.

Reactive ion etching is the most commonly used dry etch process to pattern Si.
The RIE process is highly directional, thereby enabling direct pattern transfer from
the masking material to the etched Si surface. For MEMS applications, photoresist
and Si02 thin films are often used as masking materials. Recent development of deep
reactive ion etching processes has extended Si etch depths well beyond several

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hundred microns, thereby enabling a multitude of new designs for bulk
micromachined structures.

2.4 Micromachining techniques

The three-dimensional microstructures can be produced by removing part of

the base material by physical or chemical etching process, whereas thin-film
deposition techniques are used to build layers of materials on the base materials. The
boom of the microelectromechanical systems industry in recent years would not have
been possible without the maturity of microelectronics technology. Despite the fact
that micromanufacturing evolved from IC fabrication technologies, there are several
other science and engineering disciplines involved in today's microsytems design and
manufacturing. It is fair to say that microsystems are a major step towards the
ultimate miniaturization of machines and devices.

Generally speaking, there are two distinct micromachining techniques used by

current industry. These are (l) bulk micromachining, (2) surface micromachining.
Aforementioned two principal micromanufacturing techniques are discussed below.

2.4.1 Bulk micromachining

Bulk micromachining is widely used in the production of microsensors and

accelerometers. Bulk micromachining or micromanufacturing involves the removal of
materials from the bulk substrates, usually silicon wafers, to form the desired three-
dimensional geometry of the microstructures. The technique is thus similar to that
used by sculptors in shaping sculptures. Shaping of microsystem components of the
size between 1 /lm and 1 mm made of tough materials such as silicon is beyond any
existing mechanical means. Bulk micromachining of Si uses wet and dry etching
techniques in conjunction with etch masks and etch stops to sculpt micromechanical
devices from the Si substrate. From the materials perspective, two key capabilities
make bulk micromachining a viable technology: (l) the availability of anisotropic
etchants such as ethylene-diamine pyrocatecol (EDP) and potassium hydroxide
(KOH), which preferentially etch single-crystal Si along select crystal plane; and (2)
the availability of so-compatible etch-mask and etch-stop materials that can be used in
conjunction with the etch chemistries to protect select regions of the substrate from
removal. Substrates that can be treated this way involve silicon, SiC, GaAs and
quartz. Etching, either the orientation-independent isotropic etching or the

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orientation-dependent anisotropic etching is thus the key technology used in bulk
micromanufacturing.

Wet Etchants

Popular anisotropic etchants for silicon include potassium hydroxide (KOH),

ethylene-diamine and pyrocatecol (EDP), tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide
(TMAH), and hydrazine. Typical ranges for etching rates for common substrate
materials with these etchants are given in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1 Typical etching rates for silicon and silicon compounds

Material Etchant Etch Rate

Silicon in <100> KOH 0.25-1.4 Joun/min

Silicon in <100> EDP 0.75 [Link]/min

Silicon dioxide KOH 40-80 nm/h

Silicon dioxide EDP 12 nm/h

Silicon nitride KOH 5nm/h

Silicon nitride EDP 6nm/h

Consequently, the high selectivity ratio of silicon dioxide and silicon nitride
makes these materials suitable candidates for the masks for etching silicon substrates.

2.4.2 SURFACE MICROMACHINING

In contrast to bulk rnicromanufacturing in which substrate material is removed

by physical or chemical means, the surface micromachining technique builds
microstructure by adding materials layer by layer on top of the substrate. Deposition
techniques, in particular the low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD)

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 technique are used for such buildups, and polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon) is a
common material for the layer material. Sacrificial layers, usually made of Si02, are
used in constructing the MEMS components but are later removed to create necessary
void space in the depth. Wet etching is the common method used for that purpose.

Layers that are being added in surface micromachining are typically 2 to 5 11m
thick each. In special applications, this range can be extended to 5 to 20 11m. Figure
2.4 illustrates the difference between bulk micromanufacturing and surface
micromachining. In Figure 2.4a, we see a microcantilever beam. The cantilever
beam is made of single-crystal silicon with a significant amount of material etched
away as illustrated in Figure 2.5. The same cantilever beam structure can be produced
by polysilicon with a surface micromachining technique as illustrated in Figure 2.6.

Silicon cantilever beam

I
Polysilicon cantilever beam

Die attac~ __ /
,........._-.....:_--------------,
Constraint base Constraint base

(a) By bulk micromachining (b) By surface micromachining

Figure 2.4 Microcantilever beams produced by two micromachining

techniques

T
Standard silicon
wafer thickness

Figure 2.5 Waste of material in bulk micromachining

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 PSG sacrificial

1
~-
Silicon constraint base r layer

Mask 1 for etching

2

P/
3
L _
I
•
Mask 2 for
4 deposition

L
/

5 r:-:ZZZlZZZlZlZZlZZlZZZlZlZZJ

/// / / / / / / / / / /I
'?

6 Silicon constraint base

After etching of sacrificial layer

Figure 2.6 Surface micromachining process

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