BILKENT UNIVERSITY

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

ME 657 – Nano/Micro Manufacturing

Lecture 1 – Introduction to MEMS

Dr. Yegân Erdem

 Scales and Dimensions
DNA
human
hair
atom virus cell
water drop

1Å 1nm 1µm 1mm 10cm 1m

Nanotechnology MEMS Mesoscale Macro

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 MEMS

• Scale: from below 1µm to above 1mm

• Manufacture: Microfabrication technology
• Function: micro – mechanics, -electronics, -
fluidics, -optics, …

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 MEMS
Micromotor
• Use existing silicon
processing infrastructure to
create micron-scale
machines.
• Can have many functions,
including sensing, actuation, Sandia National Labs
and communication. Micro cilia array
• Just like microelectronics,
MEMS will permeate our
everyday lives in the coming
decades.

Suh et al. S&A - A, 1996

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 Transducer System

• Transducer: Converts
user
energy from one form to
Communication
another.
• E.g. sensors, actuators
Computation • MEMS permits
integration of sensors,
Sensors Actuators actuators, computation,
and communication into
one batch-fabricated
device.

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 History of MEMS

1939 Pn-junction semiconductor (W. Schottky)

1948 Transistor (J. Bardeen, W. H. Brattain, W. Shockley)
1954 Piezoresistive effect in semiconductors (C. S. Smith)
1958 First integrated circuit (J. S. Kilby)
1959 “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” (R. Feynman)

Inspiration for MEMS & Nanotechnology

From the talk at the American Physical Society Meeting, 29.12.1959

“… and I want to offer another prize -- …$1,000 to the first guy

who makes an operating electric motor– a rotating electric
motor which can be controlled from the outside and, not
counting the lead-in wires, is only 1/64 inch cube.”
(Somebody won this prize on electric motor a year later from the talk)

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 History of MEMS
1962 Silicon integrated piezo actuators (O.N. Tufte, P. W.
Chapman, D. Long)
1965 Surface micromachined FET accelerometer (H.C.
Nathanson), R. A. Wickstrom)
1967 Anisotropic deep silicon etching (H. A. Waggener et al.)
1977 Silicon electrostatic accelerometer (Stanford)
1979 Integrated gas chromotograph (S.C. Terry, J. H. Jerman, J.
B. Angell
1982 “Silicon as a Mechanical Material” (K. Petersen)
1983 Integrated pressure Sensor (Honeywell)
1985 LIGA (W. Ehrfeld et al.)
1986 Silicon wafer bonding (M. Shimbo)
1988 Batch fabricated pressure sensors via wafer bonding
(Nova Sensor)

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 History of MEMS

1992 Bulk micromachining (SCREAM Process, Cornell)

1993 Digital mirror display (Texas Instruments)
Commercial surface micromachined accelerometer
1994
(Analog Devices)

1999 Optical network switch (Lucent)

2003 Massively parallel micro self assembly (Alien Technologies)
2004 Nanotechnology and biomems
2008 Internet of Things, wearables

[Adapted from Prof. K. Böhringer, University of Washington]

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 MEMS Market

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 MEMS Market

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 MEMS Market

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 MEMS Market
Geographical Breakdown

Euro Photonics
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 Successful MEMS Products

• Automotive industry: manifold air pressure sensor,

air bag sensor (“ADXL-50” accelerometer with self-
test)

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 Wearable Sensor Market (2018-2028)

IMU: Inertial measurement unit

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 Successful MEMS Products

• TI digital mirror display (DMD) video

projection system (development cost ~ $1B)

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 Successful MEMS Products

• Inkjet nozzles (HP, Canon, Lexmark)

up to 1600 X 1600 resolution
(~ 30M units per year)

www.smallprecisiontools.com

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 MEMS in the Past, Today and Tomorrow

• MEMS first found

interest in car
industry.
• Today we have
more than 50
sensors in cars.
• Currently the
accelerometers are
1.2 x 1.5 mm2
(Bosch)

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 MEMS in the Past, Today and Tomorrow
Consumer Electronics was the next
direction of MEMS
• Position detection
• User interface
• Motion analysis (e.g. step
counting)
• Floor level detector
• Location based sensors

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 MEMS in the Past, Today and Tomorrow
Internet of Things

Eventually we would
like to increase
productivity, security
and convenience in
our lives.

http://scoop.intel.com/celebrating-
international-internet-of-things-day/
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 MEMS in the Past, Today and Tomorrow

– Motion detection (in gaming, image stabilization,

user interface, …)
Today

– Monitoring (activity classification, environmental

monitoring, …)
Emerging

– Context awareness (indoor navigation, augmented

reality, wearable sensors, smart houses, …)

– Intent prediction (e.g. like the way Google search

Future

predicts)

Credit: Dr. Gerhard Lammel, Bosch Sensortec

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 Augmented Reality

Information from
sensors, GPS, etc
superposed on a
real world output

Stackoverflow.com

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