Structural Optimization and Mechanical Simulation of MEMS Thin-Film Getter–Heater Unit

Abstract

A MEMS thin-film getter–heater unit has been previously proposed for the vacuum packaging of a Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) device, where the floating structure (FS) design is found to be obviously more power-efficient than the solid structure (SS) one by heat transfer capacity simulation. However, the mechanical strength of the FS is weaker than the SS by nature. For high temperature usage, the unit structure must be optimized in order to avoid fracture of the cantilever beam or film delamination due to strong excessive stress caused by heating. In this paper, COMSOL is used to simulate the stress and deformation of the MEMS thin-film getter–heater unit with the cantilever structure. By comparing various cantilever structures, it is found that a model with a symmetrically-shaped heater and edge–center-located cantilever model (II-ECLC model) is the most suitable. In this model, even when the structure is heated to about 600 °C, the maximum stress of the cantilever beam is only 455 MPa, much lower than the tensile strength of silicon nitride (Si3N4, 12 GPa), and the maximum deformation displacement is about 200 μm. Meanwhile, the interfacial stress between the getter and the insulating layer is 44 MPa, sufficiently lower than the adhesion strength between silicon nitride film and titanium film (400–1850 MPa). It is further found that both the stress of the cantilever structure and the interfacial stress between the getter and the insulating layer beneath increase linearly with temperature; and the deformation of the cantilever structure is proportional to its stress. This work gives guidance on the design of MEMS devices with cantilever structures and works in high temperature situations.

Keywords

• MEMS getter–heater unit
• cantilever model
• symmetrically-shaped heater and edge–center-located cantilever structure
• stress and deformation displacement simulation
• interfacial stress simulation