Design, analysis and fabrication of MEMS-based silicon microneedles for bio-medical applications

In this paper we present the design, analysis and fabrication of silicon hollow out-of-plane microneedles for transdermal drug delivery (TDD) applications. The fabrication process of silicon microneedles involves combination of isotropic and anisotropic etching process using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching technology. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) using ANSYS rather than analytical system has been used to perform the structural analysis. The effect of axial and transverse load on the microneedles during skin insertion is investigated in the stress analysis. The analysis predicts that the resultant stresses due to applied bending and axial loads are in the safe range below the yield strength of the material.