Development Trends in the Industrial Production of Microsystems

During the past few years, remarkable affords have been made for the realization of microscale systems and devices. Whereas, due to advances in solid state and microsystem technologies, significant advances in designing, fabricating and testing of sensors, actuators and microsystems have been achieved at laboratory level, the technical and economical realization of microsystems production is considerably impeded by the lack of satisfying device technology for the industrial production. A production concept for the industrial production of hybrid microelectromechanical systems, the MicroFab concept, was developed. The concept separates the microsystems fabrication into four different tasks: design and production planning by the microsystems manufacturer, fabrication of the signal processing part by an IC-manufacturer, execution of the know-how-bearing microstructuring process steps by the microsystem manufacturer, and execution of less efficient microstructuring process steps by external technological service centers. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, the design concept of a microfabrication process center, which includes tasks like transport and handling, processing, cleaning, testing, and storing was developed and investigated.