A self-aligning latch-up mechanism in out of plane silicon microelectrode array for neural prosthesis

This paper presents a novel design and development of a self-aligning latch-up mechanism for out of plane, high density, three dimensional penetrating micro electrode array used for neural prosthesis. The microsystem consists of two components; male and female. The male component has 100 neural electrodes with one row of edge column having a "mushroom" geometry, and corner posts at the four corners. The corner posts are chemically etched to form sharp micro needles. In the female component there are rows of "mushroom" shaped columns with a hole in the corner post. The "mushroom" columns in the male and female parts compliment each other to form an inter-lock that does not allow the microsystem to fall apart, while the sharp micro needles of male component helps in self-aligning the microsystem into the holes of the female component of the microsystem. This does not allow the microsystem to move laterally.