Testing requirements for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)

This presentation addresses some of these challenges and outlines potential approaches to overcoming them. Examples of the many energy domains encountered in MEMS devices will be provided and potential strategies for evaluating MEMS device performance in these domains will be discussed. Particular attention will be paid to the challenges of measuring performance of these devices in an extensively integrated MEMS device. High-volume fabrication of MEMS devices based on lithographic methods leads to large data sets and generally predictable, but extensive, variations in fabricated tolerances. Potential methods of addressing these challenges will be described and compared with similar approaches used in integrated circuit testing. The small size of MEMS devices also poses challenges for tests that are influenced by material parameters that are not well understood at the micron scale. Interfaces and surfaces that are a relatively unimportant at the scale of macro-devices can dominate performance of MEMS devices. In addition, critical material variations (crystalline structure, strength, etc.) that can be integrated over large volumes in macro-applications must be treated exactly for many MEMS devices. The influence of these challenges on testing of MEMS devices will be discussed and approaches to address these challenges are described