Today, the market for micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), often compared to that of traditional ICs, is on the verge of enormous growth. Their small form factor and integrated functions make them conducive to a wide variety of applications in markets such as telecommunications (RF and optical), automotive, aerospace, medical, biomedical, consumer, industrial and other uses. According to Bourne Research, a market analysis firm specializing in MEMS and nanotechnology trends, total worldwide MEMS sales exceeded $7B in 2006, an increase of nearly $4B since 2001.

However, it is projected that the market will grow significantly faster when MEMs are offered at commodity-like pricing that will jump start growth into consumer devices.

Unlike traditional ICs, the cost of manufacturing MEMS is high, in large part due to packaging, and is holding MEMs back from widespread commercialization. Because the nature of MEMs ? moving parts, surface effects, sensitivity to the environment in wafer form ?is different than that of traditional ICs, MEMs have additional packaging requirements to ensure their integrity, all of which add cost.

The primary requirement for MEMS packages is encapsulation for hermicity, but other challenges include avoiding temperature spikes, chemical environments, providing controlled headspace, transparency for optical access, and low dielectric loss for radio frequency (RF) applications. At the same time the devices must support normal foundry processing steps to provide electrical contacts for wire bonding or bumping options. Given these requirements, it is a common adage in the MEMS industry that 20 percent of cost is in design and 80 percent is in packaging.

Traditionally, ceramic packaging has been used for MEMS applications, which is well-established for high-performance low-volume applications, such as those in military and space applications, and high-volume, cost-sensitive applications, such as those in the automotive and portable wireless industries. However, half the cost of manufacturing MEMs can be attributed to ceramic packaging. Another alternative, wafer-on-wafer capping in plastic packaging, is more cost effective, but it increases the die size.

Silicon packaging solutions for MEMs and RF >>

Hymite A/S Announces Innovative Silicon-Based Packaging Solution for High-Volume Production of High-Brightness LEDs at Low Cost

Read our white paper about Benefits of silicon