Harsh environment microtechnologies for NASA and terrestrial applications

Although tremendous progress has been made in recent years in the development of microtechnologies for use in harsh environments, these technologies are mostly in the research domain. Space exploration missions provide a rich application area for these technologies, given the diversity of interesting planetary exploration targets identified by NASA. Also, miniaturization is very important for NASA missions and many terrestrial applications because of the tremendous savings in mass, size and power consumption. Terrestrial applications abound in the aeronautical, automotive, petrochemical, nuclear and medical fields. This paper presents an overview of some of the key requirements for harsh environment applications as well as a brief description of promising developments in SOI, SiC and III-Nitride technologies