Course description

Microfabrication processes : Structure of silicon and other materials - Silicon wafer processing; Thin-film deposition - Lithography, wet etching and dry etching - Bulk micromachining and Surface micromachining - Wafer-bonding; LIGA and other moulding techniques - Soft lithography and polymer processing - Thick-film processing; Low temperature co-fired ceramic processing - Smart material processing

Mechanics of Solids : Stresses and deformation: bars and beams - Microdevice suspensions: lumped modeling - Residual stress and stress gradients - Poisson effect; Anticlastic curvature; examples of micromechanical structures - Thermal loading; bimorph effect - Dealing with large displacements; in-plane and 3D elasticity equations - Vibrations of bars and beams - Gyroscopic effect - Frequency response; damping; quality factor - Basic micro-flows for damping calculation

Finite element method : Types of numerical methods for solving partial differential equations - What is finite element method? Variational principles - Weak form; shape functions - Isoparametric formulation and numerical integration - Implementation of the finite element method - FEM for piezoelectrics

Electronics and packaging : Semiconductor devices: basics - OpAms and OpAmp circuits - Signal conditioning for microsystems devices - Control and microsystems - Vibration control of a beam - Integration of microsystems and microelectronics - Packaging of Microsystems: why and how - Flip-chip, ballgrid, etc.; reliability - Case-study 1 (Pressure sensor) - Case-study 2 (Accelerometer)

What will i learn?