Integrated through-wafer optical monitoring of MEMS for closed-loop control.

摘要

Current trends in many microelectronic systems show an increased use of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to perform a variety of tasks. The increased market for MEMS has led to microsystem technologies being employed in physically demanding environments and safety critical applications. This creates the need for higher degrees of certainty in MEMS operation, especially in systems that contain drive components operating under time varying load conditions. Situations such as these give rise to the need for detailed knowledge of the operational states of MEMS over the lifetime of the device, as well as device fault detection. Accurately obtaining this information by a means decoupled from the system shows the potential to further enable both complex and simple MEMS, and allows for the application of closed-loop control. Preliminary through-wafer optical monitoring research efforts have shown that through-wafer optical probing is suitable for characterizing and measuring the behavior of lateral harmonic oscillators.; This presentation will discuss research undertaken to establish integrated optical monitoring (IOM) for closed-loop control. Design of the optical microprobe setup, as well as device geometry, were completed to achieve a through-wafer optical signal with increased positional resolution and mechanical stability. Successful linear closed-loop control results achieved using the redesigned probe setup and devices will be presented. Increased displacement information in the optical output waveform is needed for the successful application of more robust, nonlinear control routines. Theoretical optical output field intensity studies are presented and compared with experimental output waveforms, showing a positional resolution of 2 Πm using grating structures. Initial binary Fresnel diffractive optical microelement design layout, fabrication parameters, and testing results will be given as well for implementation of a fully integrated optical monitoring system.