MEMS design for reliability: Mechanical failure modes and testing

This paper focuses on the identification and understanding of the failure modes and mechanisms that can potentially occur in MEMS devices. Examples of tests, analyses, and modelling activities that can be performed throughout the experimental identification of material properties and failure modes have been described related to a specific fabrication process. The design and testing of specimens allow to identify the material data and failure modes behaviour and collect data in order to derive design rules strategies. The purpose is to correlate a set of experimental data as technological bound useful to create a basis for a systematic modelling approach of a Microsystems device focusing on reliability.