Marc Madou
Ohio State University
Merging of IC Fabrication and Traditional Manufacturing Methodologies
We present a comparative study of the different precision engineering tools available today, including ultra precision diamond machining, a variety of electrochemical machining techniques, electro-discharge machining (EDM), ion beam milling, laser and e-beam machining, ultrasonic machining, bulk and surface Si micromachining and LIGA. The test-case for applying these different tools will be microfluidic devices and biomedical sensors. Besides the comparison of available tools, appreciation for the differences between absolute and relative manufacturing tolerances, importance of scaling laws and the exploitation of discontinuities of macro-law is emphasized. Guidelines and engineering rules to ease the decision making of when and which micromachining techniques to apply to deliver microparts in an energy efficient way at low cost are introduced. It is the intent of this lecture to arm the audience with a basic approach on how to choose the micromachining tools applicable to the micro-engineering task at hand. One conclusion will be that in the near future traditional and IC manufacturing will merge and that micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) will lead the way in this trend. Another conclusion will be that for biosensors to be cost effective we will have to develop continuous processes such as continuous sputtering and lithography instead of batch processes.