Grafting of Thin Film and Microstructures for Microencapsulation and Polylithic Integration

The objective of this effort is to develop a generic process for mechanically grafting MEMS devices onto an arbitrary substrate. Such a process will enable the production of smart sensors and actuators without the device limitations imposed by combined MEMS/CMOS processing. Thinning of the MEMS substrate coupled with wafer-scale handling of discrete MEMS devices on an intermediate carrier substrate will allow for back-end integration of MEMS devices and micropackages with CMOS substrates. This effort shall develop the process required for mechanical grafting MEMS structures to a substrate. The process will be demonstrated through fabrication and testing of a polylithically integrated system, composed of several custom designed MEMS microactuators and micropackages grafted to a custom designed CMOS control and readout circuit.