Quantitative Optimization of a Custom Flexible Manufacturing Platform for Assembly and Packaging of Heterogeneous Microsystems

Manufacturing process for complex and heterogeneous systems in sub-millimeter scale requires several discontinuous and expensive steps. Batch manufacturing approach via legacy semiconductor processes often do not provide a viable solution for such type of product development due to either their inherent limitations of monolithic and in-plane design or commercial unsuitability in cases of low to medium production volumes. Therefore, alternative approaches, such as microassembly techniques, are warranted for this type of advanced manufacturing requirements. However, lack of standards for design and unavailability of off-the-shelf robotic assembly systems, augmented with scaling of physics in micro-domain, eventually renders the highly iterative approach toward product development cycle cost-inefficient and time-consuming. In ordered to deal with this compounded problem in micromanufacturing, it becomes imperative that a holistic approach be employed that develops not only the product but also the system that is used to construct the same. In our work, we demonstrate this concurrent engineering approach through a novel, analytical framework, called as “Design for Multiscale Manufacturability (DfM²)”. This framework, built into an interactive software application, enables the user to estimate common manufacturability metrics such as process yield, cycle time, overall cost and device performance, which improves the decision making in production and paves the pathway to commercialization by reducing the time and cost to market. Furthermore, we also demonstrate the implementation of the DfM² application in evaluating the manufacturing of heterogeneous microsystems by a custom developed modular and reconfigurable manufacturing cell (MRMC). A real case-study has been discussed for the implementation of the DfM².