Course content and project work

The course consists of three i4 phases:¶


* Introductory lectures (the dates for the lectures 2 and 3 will be decided at the first meeting) followed by the course work, which is framed by weekly progress meetings with the course responsible and his teaching assistants. The students will go through a complete microsystem engineering cycle, i.e. the goal of the course is that the students are able¶
*on microsystems, microsystem actuators, the basic fabrication processes, turotials to the design software. The dates for the lectures 2 and 3 will be decided at the first meeting. During the last meeting, the student groups will be finalized. (week 1)
* Design work, framed by weekly progress meetings with the course responsible and his teaching assistants. The students get a real-world task description and have to conceptualize, simulate, and design their own microsystem devices using state-of-the-art simulation and CAD tools,
* to fabricate the devices in a state-of-the-art 200-mm wafer semiconductor clean-room laboratory, and
* to charactbuilding blocks and finally the complete system of a microdevice. The students will learn how to verizefy their idevices and to analyse their failure mechanisms as well as propose designas with finite-element-modelling (FEM) simulation tools, and improvlements.
The course starts with lectures introducing the student to MEMS design tools, and providing them with specifications of the real-world problems they have to solve (week 1). Then, the students will work in groups of 2–3, develop device concepts, and verify these using state-of-the art FEM simulation tools, and then design the devices with CAD software (no previous knowledge on FEM or CAD software is required for the course) (weeks 2-4). In the next step, t their final designs, considering electrical, mechanical, and fabrication feasibiliy, in a CAD layout programme which they will learn how to use during the course. The students must keep the tape-in deadline (design delivery). The simulation results and design expectations will be summarized in an intermediate report, which will be used to compare the simulated to the measured performance in the end of the project. (weeks 2-4)
* Fabrication work: The students will fabricate their own devices within a state-of-the-art micromachining/semiconductor manufacturing tools in the the KTH clean-room laboratory (week 5-6). Afterwards, the students will evaluate their devices by characterizing them with various test setups to find out which of their designs has best performance according to the given specifications (week 6-7). In the final step, the students will analyze the failure mechanisms of their devices, and have to propose design improvements for a potential next development cycle (week 7).200-mm wafer semiconductor clean-room laboratory, utilizing photo-lithography, plasma etching, deep silicon etching, wet-etching, critical-point drying, metal evaporation processes. Semiconductor device characterization tools, such as SEM (scanning-electron microscopy), surface profilometer, and white-light interferometry will be utilized to do some basic material and process characterization. (weeks 5-6)
* Device characterization: The students will measure their microsystem device performance on a probestation measurement setup. The students should analyse failure mechanisms, compare the device performance to the expectations of the simulations, and to propose design improvements for a potential next development cycle. (weeks 6-7)
Week 8 is for report writing, preparation of the final presentation.