Manufacturing complex microstructures in silicon

Consideration is given to silicon microstructure fabrication technology, a method for forming precise three-dimensional mechanical structures on a flat silicon wafer. Multiple devices are fabricated in an array and are diced apart at the end of the manufacturing process. Consequently, several hundred identical parts are batch fabricated on each wafer, and typically 25 wafers are processed in each lot. Hence this manufacturing process yields a very high number of low-cost, high-precision microstructures per lot. As applications, the fabrication of pressure sensors, accelerometers, and certain emerging devices is discussed.<>