A Design Methodology for the Yield Enhancement of MEMS Designs with Respect to Process Induced Variations

The intricacy in the manufacturing of MEMS devices has resulted in decreasing parametric yields. The problem of reduced parametric yield is increasing with the waning feature sizes. The necessity for yield enhancement in MEMS designs and particularly in commercial MEMS is being increasingly felt by the industry and therefore by the designers. There has been no standard methodology that could be followed to enhance yield in the design phase. In this paper we undertake effort in order to standardize a best practice design method in order to achieve a better yield in the design phase. The method is still in its infancy and has good scope for development. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated via a simulation based approach on a U-Shaped micro electro thermal actuator.