Vacuum wafer-level packaging for MEMS applications

Stephane Caplet; Nicolas Sillon; Marie-Therese Delaye; Pascale Berruyer

doi:10.1117/12.478249

15 January 2003 Vacuum wafer-level packaging for MEMS applications

Stephane Caplet, Nicolas Sillon, Marie-Therese Delaye, Pascale Berruyer

Proceedings Volume 4979, Micromachining and Microfabrication Process Technology VIII; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.478249
Event: Micromachining and Microfabrication, 2003, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

For several kinds of MEMS (gyrometers, accelerometers, RF MEMS, bolometers, vacuum allows a significant improvement of performances. Leti has developed a high performance sensor operating at a pressure lower than 10^-3mbar. In a first phase, a ceramic vacuum packaging has been developed: the device is encapsulated in a cavity containing a getter. However, this technique increases considerably the fabrication costs, because it is made at the chip level. For that reason, Leti has also developed wafer-level vacuum packaging process. The process to manufacture encapsulated devices is presented in this paper. The vacuum function is obtained thanks to an additional wafer (glass or silicon wafer), which supports getters. This wafer is bonded by an hermetic bonding. Characterisation of different kinds of bonding, in term of hermeticity, is presented. First chips manufactured with this process have been tested. The vacuum level in the cavities has been measured, and was lower than 10^-3 mbar. Moreover, vacuum evolution during 6 months does not show pressure increase. This process can be easily adapted to several MEMS applications. With these experiments, Leti has so proved the possibility of manufacturing low cost vacuum packaged MEMS.

Citation Download Citation

Stephane Caplet, Nicolas Sillon, Marie-Therese Delaye, and Pascale Berruyer "Vacuum wafer-level packaging for MEMS applications", Proc. SPIE 4979, Micromachining and Microfabrication Process Technology VIII, (15 January 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.478249

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