3-D Integration and Through-Silicon Vias in MEMS and Microsensors

After two decades of intensive development, 3-D integration has proven invaluable for allowing integrated circuits to adhere to Moore´s Law without needing to continuously shrink feature sizes. The 3-D integration is also an enabling technology for hetero-integration of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)/microsensors with different technologies, such as CMOS and optoelectronics. This 3-D hetero-integration allows for the development of highly integrated multifunctional microsystems with small footprints, low cost, and high performance demanded by emerging applications. This paper reviews the following aspects of the MEMS/microsensor-centered 3-D integration: fabrication technologies and processes, processing considerations and strategies for 3-D integration, integrated device configurations and wafer-level packaging, and applications and commercial MEMS/microsensor products using 3-D integration technologies. Of particular interest throughout this paper is the hetero-integration of the MEMS and CMOS technologies.