Overview of micromanufacturing. Inroduction © For mechanical engineers, a major effort in manufacturing a product is the proper selection and application of fabrication technique such as drilling, welding. casting. molding @ None of these traditional fabrication techniques can be used in manufacturing MEMS and microsystems because of extremely small size of these products. Oo The technique used to produce these products are called micromatching orOverview of micromanufacturing. Q There are three distinct micromatching techniques used by current industry. v Bulk micromanufacturing. v Surface micromtching v LIGA process Lithography, electroforming, and plastic molding.Overview of micromanufacturing. Bulk micromanufacturing Q Bulk micromanufacturing is widely used in the production of microsensors and acelerometers. Q Bulk micromanufacturing involves the removal of material from bulk substrates usually silicon wafers to form the desired three dimensional geometry of the microstructures.Overview of micromanufacturing. Q Shaping of microsvtem components are possible by physical or chemical techniques either by dry or wet etching. a Etching, either the — orientation- independent isotropic etching or the orienttion- dependent anisotropic etching is the technology used in bulk micromanufacturing.Overview of micromanufacturing, Overview of etching Etching involves the expoure = of substrate covered by an etehant protection mask to chemical etchants. Etchants ProtectiveOverview of micromanufacturing. Isotropic and anistropic etching = For substrates made of homogeneous and isotropic material, the chemical etchants will attack the materials uniformly in all directions = This is orientation-independent etching is referred as isotropic etching.overview of micromanufacturing. = Isotropic etching is hardly desirable in micromanufacturing because lack of control of finished geometry of the workpiece. = Silicon has a diamond cubic crystal structure. = Some parts of crystals are stronger and thus more resistant to etching