Last updated: 4/13/08

Overview

All students must complete a design project. This will entail the design of a MEMS device or system (of your choosing) to be fabricated in a standard process (also of your choosing). A writeup will be due at the end of the semester. Some analysis and layout will be required.

You are familiar with the Poly-MUMPs process from class, but other processes are available. Feel free to use any process that I have posted on the homepage, or any other commercial process you can find.

Report

The final report will be due (postmarked) on May 16. It should include the following content (the choice of sections is left to your discretion):
  • Introduction: Describe existing work related to your project, and explain the thrust of your work in that context.
  • Design: Describe the fabrication process used, and the structures that you plan to achieve in this process. Include a top-down view, one or more relevant cross-sections at the end of the process, plus any intermediate cross-sections that you think may be necessary for clarity.
  • Test structures: Describe a few test structures that you could examine with a microscope or probe station to verify the functionality of critical elements of your device and characterize their performance.
  • Expected results: Analogous to the results section of a real paper. Describe the way you expect your test structures to behave, with graphs showing input-output behavior or some other relevant characteristic.
  • Conclusion: Summarize your results and point out good features and drawbacks of your design. Suggest directions for future work.
The report should be 3-4 pages long. Figures may be computer-generated or hand-drawn (but should be neat and clear either way).

Milestones

I will let you pace yourself on the project, so I will not impose any intermediate due dates. The only intermediate milestone is that I would like to see a progress report, including at least the introduction and an outline of the remaining sections except the conclusion, as soon as possible. However, if you would like more feedback, feel free to send multiple progress reports.

Topic ideas

If you have no idea what you would like to design, here are some ideas.

All of these have been the subjects of large research efforts in academia or industry, and some are now commercially available. If you search the literature, you will find publications on these topics.

  • A micro-oven temperature control system to maintain a stable environment for a temperature-sensitive device (such as a resonator or gyroscope).
  • A microscale cryogenic cooler. What applications would this have?
  • A gas chromatography system (separation analyzer).
  • A resonator (of a different style than the one that keeps showing up in homework).
  • A micromechanical switch.
  • A micromirror array.
  • An internal combusion engine
  • A fuel cell
  • An accelerometer
  • A gyroscope
  • A microphone
  • A liquid pump or valve