A Novel Method of Removing Polyimide Sacrificial Layer

Due to the trade secrets and intellectual property, there are still many aspects of MEMS switches which are not understand well and are currently under investigation. In this paper, our report shows that MEMS can be released using O₂ and a little carbon powder at the same time. The relationship between the removing polyimide time and the cure temperature is presented using carbon powder in the quartz vacuum cavity when etching polyimide sacrificial layer. It greatly reduces removing polyimide sacrificial layer time. It is highly important for MEMS fabrication process technology. The process is capable of various applications in surface micromachining process, and can be applied in fabricating RF MEMS switches, tunable capacitors, high-Q suspended inductors and suspended-gate MOSFETs