GoingToMeet

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have captured the interest of the public with their promise to miniaturize existing systems, making them smaller, less expensive, and more reliable. MEMS devices, also known as Microsystems or Micromachines, are now being used in an increasing number of applications, including air bag sensors, Digital Light Processing™ projectors, and inkjet printers, to name a few. This course focuses on design, operation, packaging, and reliability aspects of MEMS technologies, with a particular emphasis on packaging.

Since MEMS devices have a large surface area to volume ratio, certain surface effects (e.g., electrostatics, liquid wetting) dominate volume effects (e.g., inertia or thermal mass). Finite element analysis (FEA) is an important part of MEMS design and operational simulation. The sensor technology made significant progress due to MEMS. Complexity and performance of advanced MEMS-based sensors are described by different MEMS sensor generations.