TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigation into low frequency response of acoustic MEMS for determination of failure modes
AU - Hantos, Gergely
AU - Desmulliez, Marc Phillipe Yves
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received January 28, 2021; revised March 4, 2021; accepted March 9, 2021. Date of publication March 11, 2021; date of current version August 4, 2021. This research was funded in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council through the Centre for Doctoral Training in Embedded Intelligence (CDT-EI) under Grant 1799140. (Corresponding author: Gergely Hantos.) The authors are with the School of Engineering & Physical Sciences, Institute of Sensors, Signals & Systems, Heriot Watt University (Edinburgh Campus), Edinburgh EH14 4AS, Scotland (e-mail: gbh1@hw.ac.uk; m.desmulliez@hw.ac.uk).
Publisher Copyright:
© 1988-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2021/8
Y1 - 2021/8
N2 - Frequency response to stimuli applied to acoustic micro-electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) yield meaningful information of certain defects affecting such devices. This article presents the effects of three distinct root causes of failures affecting the low-frequency response of MEMS microphones: lid attach holes, die attach holes and broken vents with experimental inductions of these effects for the lid attach holes and broken vents. Methods to create such defects are presented which include laser drilling and focused ion beam machining of holes. A complete characterization of induced broken vents is presented. Alternative locations for defects induction are proposed and demonstrated on 34 devices, 16 with lid attach holes and 18 with induced broken vents. The information obtained from the frequency response of the devices is shown to be insufficient to separate the root causes of failures as their effects on the frequency response is similar and the magnitudes of the variations of the observed response overlap. Additional information about the circumstances regarding the onset of defects such as location of the fault and its occurrence in the device manufacturing/assembly/operation timeline is however sufficient for root cause identification.
AB - Frequency response to stimuli applied to acoustic micro-electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) yield meaningful information of certain defects affecting such devices. This article presents the effects of three distinct root causes of failures affecting the low-frequency response of MEMS microphones: lid attach holes, die attach holes and broken vents with experimental inductions of these effects for the lid attach holes and broken vents. Methods to create such defects are presented which include laser drilling and focused ion beam machining of holes. A complete characterization of induced broken vents is presented. Alternative locations for defects induction are proposed and demonstrated on 34 devices, 16 with lid attach holes and 18 with induced broken vents. The information obtained from the frequency response of the devices is shown to be insufficient to separate the root causes of failures as their effects on the frequency response is similar and the magnitudes of the variations of the observed response overlap. Additional information about the circumstances regarding the onset of defects such as location of the fault and its occurrence in the device manufacturing/assembly/operation timeline is however sufficient for root cause identification.
KW - Acoustic MEMS
KW - characterization
KW - failure modes
KW - low-frequency response
KW - root cause identification
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102704102&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TSM.2021.3065553
DO - 10.1109/TSM.2021.3065553
M3 - Article
SN - 0894-6507
VL - 34
SP - 262
EP - 269
JO - IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing
JF - IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing
IS - 3
ER -