A High-Performance Silicon-Based Chip Carrier

High-precision MEMS inertial sensors needed for military and civilian navigation applications currently lack packaging solutions that preserve MEMS accuracy and sensitivity against thermal cycling, long-term vacuum degradation, and low-level radiation environments. Creare proposes to develop a hermetic, silicon-based leadless chip carrier (LCC) that mitigates MEMS die stress and solder bond stress due to thermal expansion mismatch with the carrier and printed circuit board (PCB) respectively. For long-term MEMS stability, our LCC also provides a sustained high-vacuum environment and provides basic radiation hardness to mitigate electromagnetic interference and energetic particle effects on MEMS accuracy. Our LCC design accommodates tall chip assemblies and provides several low-profile, low-stress options for solder attachment to a PCB. In this Phase I project, Creare will prove the feasibility of the MEMS packaging approach by developing a detailed LCC design and fabrication approach and by modeling and analyzing the package design to estimate the degree to which it protects MEMS devices from thermal, electrical, and radiation effects and meets military performance requirements. In a future Phase II project, we plan to fabricate, test, and deliver prototype chip carriers.