Lifetime estimation and reliability study of electrothermal MEMS actuators

Ganapathy Sivakumar; Stephen Johns; Jesus A. Nava; Tim Dallas

doi:10.1117/12.842410

16 February 2010 Lifetime estimation and reliability study of electrothermal MEMS actuators

Ganapathy Sivakumar, Stephen Johns, Jesus A. Nava, Tim Dallas

Proceedings Volume 7592, Reliability, Packaging, Testing, and Characterization of MEMS/MOEMS and Nanodevices IX; 75920E (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.842410
Event: SPIE MOEMS-MEMS, 2010, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

This work will present a detailed discussion on development of an automated test platform for reliability and lifetime expectancy studies of electrothermal micro-actuators. The actuators are designed using the top-most polysilicon layer of Sandia National Laboratories' SUMMiT V process. The image acquisition of the device is done using a Basler A 601f digital CCD c-mount camera, connected to a microscope with a 100 × magnification. To calculate the in-plane displacements of the device, a National Instruments' Vision image analysis software routine was utilized. An initial study is done to determine the actuator displacement characteristics with respect to the applied power. Based on the results from this study, the region of plastic deformation of the devices is determined. Arrhenius relationship theory is presented to model the plastic deformation based failure mechanism and allow the activation energy to be calculated.

Citation Download Citation

Ganapathy Sivakumar, Stephen Johns, Jesus A. Nava, and Tim Dallas "Lifetime estimation and reliability study of electrothermal MEMS actuators", Proc. SPIE 7592, Reliability, Packaging, Testing, and Characterization of MEMS/MOEMS and Nanodevices IX, 75920E (16 February 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.842410

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