Fabrication of Micro-Capacitive Inclination Sensor Using the LIGA Process

Abstract

The resource saving of various electronic devices and advancement are demanded. Research and development of the MEMS device are briskly done from viewpoints of a miniaturization and highly-efficient. However, tip-shaped device manufacture is easy by the MEMS, but is hard to manufacture the tertiary structure. Therefore, as nanofabrication technology aiming at the mass production of the tertiary structure, LIGA process to make a microstructure body by copying it attracts attention of resin. In this research, the electric capacity type inclination sensor which used the LIGA process is produced. By using resin molding for a manufacturing step, a production cost can be low held down compared with the existing sensor. Former, the silicon mold which has a pattern of the size of 7×7 mm and structure height 100µm using ICP dry etching was produced. In addition, we performed resin molding using the silicon mold and succeeded in the manufacture and evaluation of the angle of inclination sensor. We expect that if techniques using resin-molded parts are introduced to the low-cost mass-production of MEMS devices (including sensors), the range of applications will further expand to new areas of technology and industry.