LIGA Technology Today and Its Industrial Applications

摘要

Microcomponents can be manufactured not only by silicon technologies, but also by many other technologies, e.g. precision engineering, laser ablation, microelectrodischarge, RIE and by the LIGA process. In this paper, the state of the art of the LIGA technology and its industrial applications are presented, which have been developed in recent years at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. Related technologies are described as well. This includes the use of a sacrificial layer and an alternative process technology for the fabrication of mold inserts using conventional UV-lithography with the negative resist SU-8. With respect to applications of the LIGA technology, a brief introduction to their specific fabrication processes and their functioality is presented. These are microspectrometers. optical fiber connectors, cycloid gear systems, optical heterodyne recerivers and micro-mechanical gyroscopes.