Papers by Keyword: MEMS Material

Abstract: Palmtop tensile and fatigue testing machines were developed in-house for small and thin specimens that were fabricated by the LIGA process. The dimensions of the specimens were selected in accordance with the international standard IEC62047-3, and were 10 micrometers in thickness, 20 micrometers in width, and 500 micrometers in parallel length. Since the loading mechanism and methods of measuring the load and displacement were specially designed, the stiffness of the specimen is quite low compared to that of the conventional large-size specimens. The mechanical properties of electroformed Ni₂Pd₈ and Ni₄Pd₆ alloys were studied with these developed testing machines and excellent values of tensile and fatigue strengths of 2.7 GPa and 1.8 GPa, respectively were obtained in the case of the Ni₄Pd₆ alloy.

Abstract: This paper describes new structure of specimen easy to manipulate, align and grip a thin-film and test machine for a fatigue test. High cycle fatigue test has been performed on tensile type specimen of Al-3%Ti alloy using the newly developed fatigue test machine. The material used in this study was Al-3%Ti thin film, which was used in RF MEMS switch. The structure of the suggested specimen has two holes and several bridges. The holes at centre of grip end are able to make alignment and gripping easy. The bridges are to remove the side support strip easily and extract specimen from wafer without sawing. The test machine was developed using the voice coil of speaker. The new tensile loading system has a load cell with maximum capacity of 0.5N and a non-contact position measuring system based on the principle of capacitance micrometry with 0.1nm resolution for displacement measurement. Fatigue tests was performed on 7 specimens. The thickness and width of the thin film of specimen are 1.0μm and 150μm, respectively. The fatigue strength coefficient and the fatigue strength exponent of Al-3%Ti alloy micro-sized specimen are determined to be 164MPa and -0.01322, respectively

Abstract: This paper describes a novel test procedure, new structure of specimen easy to manipulate, align and grip a thin-film and test machine for a tensile and fatigue test. For the proposed specimen, the surroundings of the specimen including the side support strips except for six bridges are etched during the fabrication of the specimen, which in turn makes it possible to cut off easily the specimen from the wafer by minimizing a damage to the test film and also possible to produce the specimen in mass production. For the present specimen, a small hole is made at the grip end and using a small pin for setting the specimen onto the tester, the setting process and alignment of specimen is much easier, compared to the specimen proposed by Sharpe et al. To gain confidence in reliability of testing results, pre-test using the Al-3%Ti is performed, which is widely used in the RF switch and other MEMS devices. Tensile tests are performed, from which tensile strengths of the Al-3%Ti are measured as 343±16.22MPa at 200μm width and 1.1μm thickness.

Abstract: This paper presents high cycle fatigue properties of a Al-3%Ti thin film, used in a RF (radio-frequency) MEMS switch for a mobile phone. The thickness and width of the thin film of specimen are 1.1μm and 480.0μm, respectively. Tensile tests of five specimens are performed, from which the ultimate strength is found to be 144MPa. High cycle fatigue tests of six specimens are also performed, from which the fatigue strength coefficient and the fatigue strength exponent are found to be 336MPa and –0.1514, respectively.

Abstract: This paper presents a novel experimental method to investigate the strength of material, Al-3%Ti, which is commonly used in RF(radio frequency) microelectromechanical systems(MEMS) switch. The experimental method involves the development of a new tensile loading system. The new tensile loading system has a load cell with maximum capacity of 0.5N and a non-contact position measuring system based on the principle of capacitance micrometry with 0.1nm resolution for displacement measurement. A voice coil of audio speaker is used as the actuator of the loading system. And new specimen was designed and fabricated to easily manipulate, align and grip a thin-film for a tensile and fatigue test. The material used in this study was Al-3%Ti thin film, which was used in RF switch. The thickness and width of the thin film of specimen are 1.1µm and 480µm, respectively. The holes at center of grip end are able to make alignment and gripping easy. The bridges are to remove the side supports easily and extract specimen from wafer without sawing. Tensile tests were performed on 5 specimens. The ultimate strength of Al-3%Ti was 144MPa.

Abstract: Mechanical property evaluation of micrometer-sized structures is necessary to help design reliable microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices. Most material properties are known to exhibit dependence on specimen size and such properties of microscale structures are not well characterized. This paper describes techniques developed for tensile testing of materials used in MEMS. Epi-polycrystalline silicon is currently the most widely used material, and its tensile strength has been measured as 1.52GPa. We have developed an axial testing machine for testing microscale specimen using electro-magnetic actuator. The field magnet and the moving coil taken from an audio-speaker were utilized as the components of the actuator. Structure of specimen was designed and manufactured for easy handling and alignment. In addition to the static tensile tests, new techniques and procedures for measuring strength are described.