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Invited Talk

Reliability of MEMS for medical applications

Prof. Dr. Alex Dommann
Program Manager for MEMS
CSEM Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique SA, Neuchâtel

Abstract

To achieve the demand on high reliability for MEMS, especially required for medical applications, new methods in testing and qualification of materials and devices are needed. Mechanical properties must be used as design element for MEMS devices. They are of critical importance to reliably predict the performance of micromechanical systems and other micro scale devices. To characterize the small-scale and scale specific mechanical properties of MEMS materials, different micro scale experiments are developed. The aim is to have a strong correlation ship between the experiment on test specimens and the MEMS application. The understanding of failure requires detailed information about the material structure on the atomic scale. Therefore, HRXRD is a routinely used tool for investigations of the materials composition, strain, orientation and overall quality. In-situ measurements of local deformations and the analysis of the strain field and defects in the critical regions of the loaded structure by HRXRD allow the comparison and correlation with the simulation of deformations by the Finite Element Method (FEM).

Biography

Alex Dommann earned his PhD at the ETH Zurich after completing his diploma in solid-state physics and crystallography at the University of Zurich. Since 1991 he has been Professor of materials research at the Interstate University of Applied Sciences Buchs, NTB. In January 2005 he was appointed chief technology officer at the Centre Suisse d’Electronic et Microtechnique SA CSEM, Neuchâtel. Since 2008 he is also deputy division head of the new Microsystems Technology division at CSEM lead by Nico de Rooji. His research concentrates on characterization, coating and structuring of semiconductor- and MEMS- processes with special emphasis on ageing. He made significant contributions to different aspects of semiconductor- processes characterization. He is member of different national and international technical and scientific committees.

Volker Koch, 10/2010