Analysis of stress in silicon-based microsystems by X-ray diffraction techniques

Packaging-induced stresses and residual stresses from fabrication can pose a serious threat to the long term functioning of microsystems. Reliability studies on potential failure sources have an impact on MEMS design and support efforts to assure the required performance over the full life cycle. High-resolution x-ray diffraction is a powerful method providing key information on stresses and defects in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and supplements other analysis techniques applied in microtechnology. Advanced High Resolution X-ray Diffraction (HRXRD) Methods are discussed for the analysis packaging-induced stain in microsystems.