Transition From MEMS Technology to Nanofabrication

The successful commercialization of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) from R&D to off-the-shelf products and systems has evolved from laboratory research to reliable and low cost industrial processing methods over the past 20 years. Standardization, infrastructure, roadmaps and industrial associations have been deemed key contributors for a successful transition and adaptation of microelectronics fabrication techniques to a specific nature of manufacturing MEMS devices resulted in turn key solutions for low cost, high yield and high volume wafer level processing. The need for smaller feature sizes as well as low cost manufacturing solutions has lead to significant improvements of the classical optical lithography in the past two decades following Moore’s law. Alternative patterning techniques are under development worldwide for producing patterns in the nm-range. There are similarities between MEMS and Nanofabrication requirement that allow for transitioning standardized and reliable processing technology from wafer bonding to hot embossing and from wafer level packaging to μ-CP and UV-based Nanoimprint Lithography.