Foundries for MEMS/MST: a status overview

摘要

MEMS industry is definitely not as mature as the IC industry. A common factor is in the methodology in the field of statistical process control, lot-tracking etc. The complex production processes need those procedures to achieve high quality, high yields and short development times. From these parameters, one can conclude that the MEMS industry is developing well into stage three mentioned in the introduction. The basic requirements for new industries like MEMS are good product ideas with market potential, venture capital and infrastructure. The niche position of LIGA and the popularity of bulk micro machining can be explained by the infrastructure cost. Similar the unpopularity of integrated technology for smaller activities is explained realizing the cost of maintaining the CMOS technology. The weakest point of the MEMS foundry community as a whole is quality. Besides that MEMS assembly is still in its infancy.