Silex Microsystems, a pure play MEMS foundry, offers a high density through silicon via technology that enables MEMS designs with significantly reduced form factor. The Through Silicon Via (TSV) process developed by Silex offers sub 50 μm pitch for through wafer connections in up to 600 μm thick substrates. Silex via process enables “all silicon” MEMS designs and true "Wafer Level Packaging" fe...

Micromachining and micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) technologies can be used to produce complex structures, devices and systems on the scale of micrometers. Initially micromachining techniques were borrowed directly from the integrated circuit (IC) industry, but now many unique MEMS-specific micromachining processes are being developed. In MEMS, a wide variety of transduction mechanisms ca...

RF/microwave MEMS technology. Part one begins with a brief discussion of RF/microwave system requirements, and then introduces the enabling potentialities of the MEMS arsenal to meet these requirements. In particular, MEMS fabrication techniques are addressed, and fundamental components, including inductors, varactors, resonators and transmission lines, as well as the design/ CAD paradigm, are ...

MEMS components by their very nature have different and unique failure mechanisms than their macroscopic counterparts. This paper discusses failure mechanisms observed in various MEMS components and technologies. MEMS devices fabricated using bulk and surface micromachining process technologies are emphasized.

The microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) area has been developed extensively during the past three decades. In the 1970s, with the advancement of semiconductor microelectronics processing, researchers investigated wet anisotropic chemical etching processes for forming three dimensional silicon geometries. In the 1980s, researchers adopted the Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) process to realize ...

Microelectromechanical ~MEMS! gyroscopes have wide-ranging applications including automotive and consumer electronics markets. Among them, complementary metal-oxide semiconductor-compatible MEMS gyroscopes enable integration of signal conditioning circuitry, multiaxis integration, small size, and low cost. This paper reviews various designs and fabrication processes for integrated MEMS gyroscop...