Accelerated lifetime tests and failure analysis of an electro-thermally actuated MEMS valve

This paper presents accelerated lifetime tests for an electro-thermally actuated MEMS valve in order to identify and analyze its failures. To perform the different tests, two experimental setup are specially designed. Tests consist in cycling several MEMS valves by changing at each test the operating condition: with unfiltered air, without air and with filtered air. Results show that different failure mechanisms can be detected depending on the operating conditions of the MEMS valve.