Micromachined Sensor and Actuator Research at the Microelectronics Development Laboratory

An overview of the major sensor and actuator projects using the micromachining capabilities of the Microelectronics Development Laboratory at Sandia National Laboratories will be presented. Development efforts are underway for a variety of micromechanical devices and control electronics for those devices. Surface micromachining is the predominant technology under development. Pressure sensors based on silicon nitride diaphragms have been developed. Hot polysilicon filaments for calorimetric gas sensing have been developed. Accelerometers based upon high-aspect ratio surface micromachining are under development. Actuation mechanisms employing either electrostatic or steam power are being combined with a three-level active (plus an additional passive level) polysilicon surface micromachining process to couple these actuators to external devices. The results of efforts toward integration of micromechanics with the driving electronics for actuators or the amplification/signal processing electronics for sensors is also described. This effort includes a tungsten metallization process to allow the CMOS electronics to withstand high-temperature micromechanical processing.