Dicing of fabricated MEMS （microelectromechanical system） devices is sometimes a source of challenge, especially when devices are overhanging structures. In this work, a modified cleaving technique is developed to p...Dicing of fabricated MEMS （microelectromechanical system） devices is sometimes a source of challenge, especially when devices are overhanging structures. In this work, a modified cleaving technique is developed to precisely separate fabricated devices from a silicon substrate without requiring a dicing machine. This technique is based on DRIE （deep reactive ion etching） which is regularly used to make cleaving trenches in the substrate during the releasing stage. Other similar techniques require some extra later steps or in some cases a long HF soak. To mask the etching process, a thick photoresist is used. It is shown that by applying different UV （ultraviolate） exposure and developing times for the photoresist, the DRIE process could be controlled to etch specific cleaving trenches with less depth than other patterns on the photoresist. Those cleaving trenches are used to cleave the wafer later, while the whole wafer remains as one piece until the end of the silicon etching despite some features being etched all the way through the wafer at the same time. The other steps of fabricating and releasing the devices are unaffected. The process flow is described in details and some results of applying this technique for cleaving fabricated cantilevers on a silicon substrate are presented.展开更多
文摘Dicing of fabricated MEMS （microelectromechanical system） devices is sometimes a source of challenge, especially when devices are overhanging structures. In this work, a modified cleaving technique is developed to precisely separate fabricated devices from a silicon substrate without requiring a dicing machine. This technique is based on DRIE （deep reactive ion etching） which is regularly used to make cleaving trenches in the substrate during the releasing stage. Other similar techniques require some extra later steps or in some cases a long HF soak. To mask the etching process, a thick photoresist is used. It is shown that by applying different UV （ultraviolate） exposure and developing times for the photoresist, the DRIE process could be controlled to etch specific cleaving trenches with less depth than other patterns on the photoresist. Those cleaving trenches are used to cleave the wafer later, while the whole wafer remains as one piece until the end of the silicon etching despite some features being etched all the way through the wafer at the same time. The other steps of fabricating and releasing the devices are unaffected. The process flow is described in details and some results of applying this technique for cleaving fabricated cantilevers on a silicon substrate are presented.
