Reliability of MEMS devices under multiple environments

Abstract

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) devices are used in a variety of applications for sensing acceleration, translation, rotation, pressure and sound in addition to actuation and signal generation. The MEMS devices have been applied to varied fields including healthcare and automotive applications. Data on reliability degradation of MEMS devices in harsh environment applications including combined environments of high temperature exposure, and high-g shock loading is scarce. In this paper, a test vehicle with a MEMS Accelerometers has been studied under high-temperature exposure followed by high-g mechanical shock. Test boards have been designed to assemble all the sensor types. The boards have been subjected to mechanical shocks using the method 2002.5, condition G, under the standard MIL-STD-883H test. Shock pulse amplitudes have been ramped from 500 to 30,000g with pulse duration between 0.1 to 1 millisecond. Full field effect on the components has been extracted using high speed cameras operating at 100,000 fps in conjunction with digital image correlation. The degradation of the MEMS response has been studied using statistical pattern recognition. The failure mechanisms have been characterized. The deterioration of the components has been extracted using non-destructive evaluation with micro-CT scans and X-ray. Further, the degradation of the MEMS response has been studied using statistical pattern recognition. The failure mechanisms have been characterized.