Achieving High-Performance Bulk Silicon Electrothermal Actuator on CMOS Substrate

Abstract

In this paper, a new approach for increasing the sensitivity of the bulk silicon electrothermal actuators is reported. And the bulk-Si MEMS electrothermal actuators are fabricated on the CMOS substrate by a novel and simple post-CMOS process. Through this technology, the substrate isolation and electrical interconnection between the CMOS circuits and MEMS sensors are achieved perfectly. The measurement results show that the sensitivity of the modified electrothermal actuators is about 6 times higher than that of the non-modified electrothermal actuators. And the sensitivities (non-linearity) of the modified and non-modified electrothermal actuators are 20.23μm/V (0.865%) and 3.34μm/V (0.37%), respectively. Furthermore, the finite element software ANSYS was used to verify the design and the models of the electrothermal actuator. The electrothermal actuator was characterized under the 3D microscopy.