Chapter 41 – MEMS Reliability

With the rapid microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) market growth, MEMS reliability has become ever more important especially in medical, automotive and aerospace applications where high reliability performance under harsh field conditions is expected. MEMS reliability needs to be considered at the early design phases of MEMS elements, electronics, packaging, and microfabrication processes. There are many challenges related to reliability in MEMS devices that are not faced in traditional semiconductor microelectronics since MEMS devices are actually miniaturized systems composed of several other parts in addition to the MEMS element. This chapter discusses the reliability issues of MEMS devices, the testing methods and introduces the various failure mechanisms. This chapter also looks at how the selection of materials and microfabrication techniques affects reliability.