CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS FOR PACKAGING MEMS AND MICROSYSTEMS

摘要

There are many challenges currently hindering the commercialization of microsystems, particularly those of reducing package cost and package size. Other concerns include microsystem release, hermeticity requirements, contamination and thermal hierarchy. The disproportionately high package to device cost ratio is largely due to the use of packaging solutions that are customized for a given microsystem. This practice is frequently adopted because different devices operate in varied environmental conditions. To find a generic package, which allows controlled interaction with the environment that a given microsystem is intended to sense and affect, is a significant challenge. An alternate approach that provides substantial savings and improved flexibility is the use of a modular, miniaturized packaging architecture. It is possible to build packages to serve an extensive range of microsystem applications by simply reconfiguring basic components. In addition to introducing the common practices in microelectronics packaging and reviewing two key challenges of MEMS packaging, this paper will review one particular packaging strategy based on the development of a modular, near-hermetic, direct-chip-attach, MEMS-scale microsystem package. Such a package could increase the commercial viabilityof microsystems while acting as a flexible platform for progressive research in the area of non-hermetic packaging.