MEMS FORWATCHES
I
W. Noell, I P.-A. Clerc, I S. Jeanneret, A. Hoogerweif, P. Niedeimann, ' A . Perret, N.F. de Rooij
I
Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Laboratory (SAMLAB),Institute of Microtechnology (IMT),
University of NeuchPtel and EPFL, Rue Jaquet-Droz 1, 2007 Neuchitel, Switzerland,
http://www-samlab.unine.ch
2
Swiss Center of Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM SA),
Rue Jaquet-Droz 1,2007 NeuchPtel, Switzerland, httP://www.csem.ch
ABSTRACT
In order to make new mechanical watch movements possible
as well as adding new functions to wristwatches, MEMS,
W-LIGA, and silicon micromachining have become
indispensable technologies in the watch industries. Examples
presented here are deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) of
silicon gears, SU-8 based UV-LIGA and MEMS based
pressure and magnetic sensors. This article provides a brief
overview of some recent commercialized technologies in
Switzerland.
1. INTRODUCTION
In recent years an increasing interest has grown in using
E M S fabrication technology and MEMS components in
both electronic and mechanical wristwatches. The possibility
to integrate more functionality in a wristwatch is certainly a
major driving force behind this development. The possibility
of accessing the barometric pressure leads to information
about trends in weather and the same barometric pressure can
be converted in altitude by a simple calibration procedure.
Conventional piemresistive pressure sensors with sufficient
sensitivity are currently the basis for wristwatches integrating
weather information and altitude reading capabilities [1,2].
Indirect measuring of the earth magnetic field by
vertical Hall effect sensors via a small rotating permanent
magnet can be achieved as well. Their integration into
wristwatches allows for an integrated compass function [3].
Magnetic proximity sensors that are hundreds of times
more sensitive than currently available Hall-effect based
sensors are microreed relays, which are being used for
positions sensing of watch components and contactless data
introduction [4].
DRIE and UV-LIGA became a very important
industrial manufacturing processes for the production of
parts for mechanical watches and will be discussed in detail
below.
0-7803-8265-x/04/$17.00 02004 IEEE.
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2. BASICTECHNOLOG,ES
Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE)
The possibility of transferring a highly accurate photoresist
pattern with high precision into a silicon substrate by DRIE
is probably one of the major revolution in MEMS
technologies in recent years. The DRIE technology allows to
pattern silicon devices with vertical walls up to a couple of
hundred microns. Using a silicon-on-insulator (SO0
substrate with a device layer thickness of 15 to 150 pm, the
buried silicondioxide (BOX) serves as a natural etch-stop for
the ICP etching and hence defines accurately the height as
the third dimension of the silicon components. Removing the
BOX in a hatch process also allows for a medium to high
volume production. More and more silicon based gears and
other mechanical watch components are developed based on
DRLE. An example will be described below.
SU-8-based UV-LIGA
A complementary technology, which likewise yields high
vertical walls and is used for electroplating of mechanical
watch components, is the SU-8 based LIGA process. Epon
SU-8 is an epoxy-based negative photoresist and has been
the subject of many research projects for the manufacturing
of micro-mechanical, -optical and -fluidic parts [5,6,71.
3. MEMS FOR QUARTZ
WATCHES
Tuning forks
One of the key reasons for the success of the electronic
wristwatches is certainly the use of quartz resonators
operated as flexure-mode tuning forks, guaranteeing an error
as little as a few seconds per year. The currently used quartz
tuning forks are certainly one of the most convincing
examples of extreme high volume manufacturing of MEMS
components. The entire process is based of the quartz tuning
forks is based on hatch processing of quartz wafers using
standard photolithography and wet chemical etching. In
addition to the wafer processing, the individual tuning forks
1
Figure I : The depicted silicon watch parts are fabricated by SO1 technology andfDRIE. The gears provide a very light weight,
low friction, low mass, and low moment of inertia which is all needed f o r the escape mechanism
are packaged in evacuated metallic cans or in multilayer
ceramic packages including a glass window, which allows
laser trimming after sealing of the package. Fine-tuning of
the resonance frequency of the tuning fork is achieved by
laser trimming through evaporation of a gold thin film from
the ends. This technique is fully automated and can achieve
accuracies better than 2 ppm [8].
Pressure sensor.
The MEMS pressure sensor is one of the first and most
important MEMS devices and has recently found its
application in wristwatches and other portable devices. There
it measures the barometric pressure, which is easily
converted to the absolute altitude through a calibrated
procedure, and provides important data for weather
developments.
The two key components are the precisely etched
silicon membrane and the integrated piezo-resistive stress
sensor, which detects the membrane deflection. These
components could be developed and manufactured due to a
full control of the membrane thickness over complete
production batches using an electrochemical etch-stop at the
junction of the n-type epi-layer on a p-type silicon substrate
as described in detail by Kloeck et al. [I]. A successful
technology transfer took place to implement this etch-stop
process at an industrial back-end MEMS manufacturer,
Intersema Sensoric Inc., which became a major supplier of
several wristwatch manufacturers 121. Besides in watches
pressure sensors are used now in many other portable devices
such as pocket-knives and integrated low-power altimeters.
2
The commercially available pressure sensors allow an
absolute pressure measurement in the range of 300 to
I100 mhar of about +I .5 mbar with a resolution of 0.1 mbar,
which corresponds to about l m change in altitude at sea
level. The whole device comes as an SMD with an integrated
ADC and measures in its standard configuration as little as
about 9 x 9 x 3 mm3 PI.
Magnetic Angular Position Sensors - Compass
The direct integration of Hall effect sensors in wristwatches
has been proven difficult in order to accurately and directly
measure the magnetic field direction of the earth's magnetic
field. An indirect method utilizing a freely-rotating small
permanent magnet placed above a 2D or 3D integrated
vertical Hall effect sensor was shown by Burger et al. from
the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
(EPFL) [3]. The permanent magnet rotates freely and aligns
with magnetic field lines of the earth and hence locally
amplifies the magnetic field of the eanh by a factor of 1000,
allowing the vertical Hall sensor underneath to measure
contactlessly the absolute angular position of the permanent
magnet with an accuracy of l%o over 360". Optimizing both
the magnet shape as well as the sensor geometry, the device
becomes less sensitive to alignment errors during fabrication.
The final accuracy of the sensor is obtained by taking into
account the silicon anisotropy to the Hall effect and
electronic signal processing, which compensate for
temperature and junction field effects [91.
MicroReed Magnetic Position Sensors
Contrary to Hall effect sensors, microreed MEMS based
relays and sensors do not need to measure the angular
position of a magnetic field but rather simply switch in the
presence of a certain magnetic field strength. Hence a non-
contact and small position sensors was specifically
developed for portable devices by the ASULAB S.A., the
Swatch Group's research and development laboratory [4].
The microreed sensors can detect the position of the bezel of
a wristwatch for contactless data introduction such as
different time zones. The bezel host a certain number of
small (4 mm3)SmCo magnets, whose magnetic field can he
sensed at a distance of 2 mm through a sealing and metallic
casing. The pull-in magnetic field is about 3 mT while the
release field is in the order 60% to 80% of the pull-in field.
Utilizing several microreed sensors and magnets, different
combinations of switched and non-switched sensor states can
be generated and hence yield a specific position sensitive
code.
The microreed, which is to our knowledge the smallest
passive low-power magnetostatic sensor, is based on surface
micromachining on top of a borosilicate substrate. The fixed
electrode and the movable (reed) electrode are made of an
20/80 iron-nickel alloy and are embedded in rhodium as
contact material to avoid sticking at a contact force of less
than 30 pN and to minimize the contact resistance to a value
of 2 ohm. The airgap between the reed electrode and the
substrate layers are fabricated with standard sacrificial layer
technology. The final part of the microreed device process is
the wafer-level packaging which is based on bonding a
second glass wafer with etched cavities onto the MEMS part
wafer. Half-thickness dicing isolates the sensors from each
other and yielding a total device volume of about
2 x 1.4 x 0.75 111171' [4].
4. MEMS FOR MECHANICAL
WATCHES
Silicon Gears and Components based on DRIE
Devices using SO1 wafers in conjunction with DRIE etching
have been published for some time now [lo]. In recent years
this technology was also used to fabricate components for
mechanical watches. This work was initiated by A. Perret et
al. of the Swiss Center of Electronics and Microtechnology
(CSEM SA) in collaboration with IMT [ll].
The gears and devices depicted in Fig. 1 are based on
SO1 technology utilize a device layer with a thickness of
about 150 pm. The DRIE pattern transfer is performed with a
combined silicon dioxide and photoresist mask. A single
DRIE step is followed by coating process of sputtered carbon
and the devices are subsequently released in HF. The
verticality of the devices is better than +2" with a surface
roughness of less than 50nm RMS. A low friction
coefficient of less than 0.05 was achieved by the above
mentioned lubricating carbon coating.
The special shape and mechanical properties of the
silicon parts allow the fabrication of an innovative escape
3
I
Figure 2: Electroplated high-aspect ratio structures made by
UV-LIGA pmvide arbitrary shapes impossible to be mass-
manufactured with conventional technologies.
mechanism used in the Ulysse Nardin "Freak" watch. Silicon
proved to be the most suitable material for this application
due to the fact that it is lighter, has the lowest friction
coefficient and is, unlike metallic components, not sensitive
to magnetic fields. The light weight, the low friction
coefficient, and the reduced moment of inertia due the
hollowed teeth of the microfabricated parts reduce the energy
consumption and loss in the watch mechanics considerably.
The low weight and thus the low inertia of the silicon
parts as well as the holes create a flexible and highly shock
insensitive components which easily withstand several
thousands of g ("mouton-pendule" test). These are important
features required throughout the assembly process as well as
for the watch usage itself [ll].
Besides the escape components other parts such as
springs are microfabricated by CSEM and IMT in small
series for the watch industry. They create the base for many
more new silicon components in wrist watches for future
watches with increased performance.
Metallic Electroplated Components based on W-LIGA
The combination of lithography with electroforming, known
as LIGA technology, offers unparalleled machining precision
and extended design freedom for the manufacture of fine
parts (Fig. 2). The SU-8 based LIGA technology
undoubtedly attracts interest, in particular when competing
technologies fail to meet the precision and quality
requirements. Yet limited industrial activity has been
reported. Mimotec (Sion, Switzerland) is one of the earliest
companies that have led the way for the watch making
industry [7].This technology is complementary to the above
described DRIE silicon process, since it yields metallic
components with a height of several hundred microns.
The W-LIGA process can most simply be described
by the coating of a conductive substrate with SU-8 [6]. The
resist is then exposed by an W lamp through a photomask to
initiate crosslinking of the polymer. Unexposed areas are
removed in a solvent, clearing the surface to be plated. The
pattern transferred onto the substrate outlines the shape of the
part to be electroplated, and thus forms a plating mould.
Nickel parts are most frequently produced, but there is a
growing interest for alloys such as NiP and NiCo [12].
The technology is fairly straightforward, but a good
process optimization is necessary to meet the requested
precision. Deviation from verticality must for instance be
smaller than 0.4" to achieve a size precision of +2 Mm on
parts 300 pn thick. Sidewall profile and pattern dimensions
can precisely be controlled by the process parameters.
~~
ne possibility of su.8
multilayers with multiple
exposures and one development step allows the fabrication
of 3D devices unprecedented with conventional technologies.
5. CONCLUSION
The combination of different MEMS technologies with
conventional and well established watch mechanics leads to
completely new functionalities in wristwatches at low costs
and with very low power consumption.
Further innovations and developments will create
devices and components that can be used in other portable
devices besides watches.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of all
members of the Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems
Laboratory (SAMLAB) of the IMT and the technology
support of COMLAB (joint mimofabrication facility of IMT
and CSEM) as well as the financial support of the Committee
for Technology and Innovation (CTI).
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