Impact wear and other contact effects on the electro-mechanical reliability of MEMS

Within reliability issues in the MEMS field, the contact problem is one of the most complex to model and validate. In fact, it is influenced by many electro-thermo-mechanical parameters that make extremely difficult to predict the damaging effects on the involved surfaces and its implications on the device performances and reliability. The goal of this paper is to analyze the impact wear and the other effects of contact on the electromechanical properties of MEMS by means of dedicated experiments. Long term tests of repetitive impact loading are reported with the goal of relating the excitation parameters to the electrical RF performances degradation of the devices due to impact effects on electrode surfaces.