A novel process for fabricating slender and compliant suspended poly-Si micro-mechanical structures with sub-micron gap spacing

Author

Pamidighantam, S. ; Laureyn, W. ; Salah, A. ; Verbist, A. ; Tilmans, H.A.C.

Author_Institution

MCP/MEMS Group, IMEC, Leuven, Belgium

fYear

2002

fDate

24-24 Jan. 2002

Firstpage

661

Lastpage

664

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of a novel wet-release process for the fabrication of slender and compliant micro-mechanical structures with sub-micron gap spacing developed in an in-house CMOS compatible 8" pilot line. A Self Assembled Monolayer (SAM) of n-decyltrichlorosilane (DTS) is used as an anti-stiction material to realise suspended structures. Process characterisation includes studies on the DTS SAM, release of the polycrystalline Silicon and polycrystalline Silicon Germanium test structures. We have obtained work of adhesion values of 11 /spl mu/J/m/sup 2/ and 0.06 /spl mu/J/m/sup 2/, slenderness ratios of 218 and 1000, compliance of 12 m/N and 350 m/N, and contact angle of 126/spl deg/ and 129/spl deg/ for poly -Si and poly-SiGe cantilevers respectively. Our results compare favourably well with results from the literature.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; Ge-Si alloys; adhesion; contact angle; elemental semiconductors; integrated circuit technology; micromachining; micromechanical devices; monolayers; semiconductor materials; silicon; stiction; thermal stability; CMOS compatible line; DTS; MEMS; SAM; Si; SiGe; antistiction material; compliance; contact angle; micro-mechanical structures; n-decyltrichlorosilane; polySiGe cantilevers; polysilicon cantilevers; slenderness ratio; stiction; sub-micron gap spacing; surface micromachining; wet release process; work of adhesion; Adhesives; CMOS process; CMOS technology; Electrostatics; Fabrication; Germanium silicon alloys; Micromachining; Micromechanical devices; Silicon germanium; Wet etching;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2002. The Fifteenth IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Las Vegas, NV, USA

ISSN

1084-6999

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7185-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2002.984357

Filename

984357