Implementation of various vacuum conditions in sealed chambers for wafer-level bonding by using embedded cavity

Abstract

The existing foundry processes enable the fabrication and integration of various sensors on a single chip. However, various vacuum conditions of these sensors remain a critical concern after packaging. For example, accelerometers and gyroscopes are operated under two different vacuum conditions. This study extends the concept of using outgassing to realize sealed chambers under different vacuum conditions in one wafer-level bonding step. In other words, by etching various numbers and sizes of cavities on a substrate, the vacuum condition of a sealed chamber can be modulated. In applications, resonators and Pirani gauges were fabricated and characterized to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed process scheme. The vacuum condition of the sealed chambers was then monitored using the quality factor (detected by resonators) and the pressure (measured by Pirani gauges). The measurements indicate that the sealed chambers with vacuum conditions ranging from approximately 2 to 180 mbar were simultaneously fabricated and integrated on the same wafer. This approach could facilitate the monolithic integration of devices with different vacuum requirements, such as approximately 100 mbar chamber pressure for accelerometers, and single-digit millibars vacuum conditions for gyroscopes.