Mechanical characterization of polysilicon through on-chip tensile tests

Author

Corigliano, Alberto ; De Masi, Biagio ; Frangi, Attilio ; Comi, Claudia ; Villa, Alberto ; Marchi, Mauro

Author_Institution

Dept. of Struct. Eng., Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

Volume

13

Issue

2

fYear

2004

fDate

4/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

200

Lastpage

219

Abstract

Two new types of on-chip tests have been designed in order to evaluate the elastic Young modulus and the fracture strength of polysilicon used in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The former is a pure tension test, while the latter is a single-edge-notched tension test. The actuation in both tests is obtained by means of an ad hoc designed layout of parallel plates capacitors applying sufficiently high forces to reach significant strains in the tensile specimens and complete failure of the notched specimens. The pure tension tests on 20 specimens showed a low dispersion and gave a Young modulus for the polysilicon of 143 GPa. A total of 92 notched specimens were tested up to failure. The experimental results, supported by finite-element simulations, gave a value of the maximum stress for the notched specimens in the range 4144-4568 MPa.

Keywords

Weibull distribution; Young´s modulus; finite element analysis; fracture toughness; micromechanical devices; tensile testing; MEMS; Si; elastic Young modulus; finite-element simulations; fracture strength; mechanical characterization; microelectromechanical systems; on-chip tensile tests; parallel plates capacitors; polysilicon; single-edge-notched tension test; stress; tensile specimens; Actuators; Materials testing; Micromechanical devices; Performance evaluation; Production; Statistical analysis; Stress; System testing; System-on-a-chip; Young´s modulus;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microelectromechanical Systems, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1057-7157

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JMEMS.2003.823221

Filename

1284358