Device for measuring the flexural fracture strength of etched surface

To evaluate the quality of deep-reactive-ion-etching process quantitatively, a novel device was designed and fabricated to obtain the flexural fracture strength of etched surface. The device is composed of beam of uniform strength and on-chip multifunctional micro needle. The testing method only requires probe station in the measurement. Devices designers can utilize the method to research the mechanical reliability of the devices easily, and as for foundry, the testing result can be used as a parameter to reflect the etching capacity. From our bending test, it can be demonstrated that the fracture strength of the etched surface in our etching conditions is about 2.1 GPa.