Sensors and Actuators Designed and Fabricated in a Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) Course Using Standard MEMS Processes

Final Paper pdf 655KB

Use of “MUMPs” (Multi-User-MEMS-Processes) is being described as a platform to teach Silicon based MEMS technologies and to implement design projects in a new, interdisciplinary senior level undergraduate engineering course offered at the University of Southern Maine. In addition to the standard lectures/reading/homeworks/tests routine of a typical coursework students in this class are assigned to design, as term projects, various MEMS sensors and actuators using integrated circuit layout design tools and standard Silicon MEMS technologies available and known as “MUMPs”. Initially “SOI-MUMPs” was chosen for the final class projects to design crash sensors and capacitive acceleration sensors. In the latest offering of the course a newer technology, “Piezo-MUMPs” was adopted for its additional piezo-electric film which facilitated MEMS designs to incorporate acoustic and vibration sensors, vibrational energy harvesting devices, piezoelectric drives, micro-resonators as well as higher temperature micro-heaters, thermal actuators and thermocouples. Successfully completed student designs were combined to form a multi-project MEMS chip and fabricated thanks to funding received from NASA/MSGC and USM. The paper presents examples of such designs including simulation and test results and test set ups/equipment.

Author(s):

Mustafa Guvench    
Engineering
University of Southern Maine
United States