Effects of electrostatic charge accumulation during MEMS fabrication

Author

Antoniu, Angela ; Salomons, Mark ; Reus, Nicolae

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta., Canada

fYear

2003

fDate

20-23 July 2003

Firstpage

69

Lastpage

75

Abstract

Electrostatic charge transfer during the MEMS fabrication processes poses problems when the charge accumulates on the MEMS device. This can cause both particle attraction to the charged micro-system or its components as well as malfunctions. An example of the effects of such phenomena is presented for the case of an electrostatic comb drive, where parts of the device are contaminated through electrostatic attraction (ESA). The results of the electrostatic field measurements performed during one fabrication process in MEMS devices are shown and a solution for overcoming the ESA effects is proposed.

Keywords

charge measurement; elemental semiconductors; micromechanical devices; silicon; surface charging; MEMS; Si; charged micro system; electrostatic charge; electrostatic comb drive; electrostatic field measurements; CMOS technology; Electrostatic discharge; Electrostatic measurements; Fabrication; Instruments; Microelectromechanical devices; Micromechanical devices; Nanofabrication; Pollution measurement; Silicon;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

MEMS, NANO and Smart Systems, 2003. Proceedings. International Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7695-1947-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICMENS.2003.1221967

Filename

1221967