• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.12 s.255
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• pp.1196-1202
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• 2006

A MEMS methanol reformer was fabricated and its performance was evaluated in the present study. Catalytic steam reforming of methanol was selected because the process had been widely applied in macro scale reformers. Conventional Cu/ZnO catalyst that was prepared by co-precipitation method to give the highest coating quality was used. The reactor structure was made by bonding three layers of glass wafers. The internal structure of the wafer was fabricated by the wet-etching process that resulted in a high aspect ratio. The internal surface of the reactor was coated by catalyst and individual wafers were fusion-bonded to form the reactor structure. The internal volume of the microfabricated reactor was $0.3cm^3$ and the reactor produced exhaust gas with hydrogen concentration at 73%. The production rate of hydrogen was 4.16 ml/hr that could generate power of 350 mW in a typical PEM fuel cell.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.13-18
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• 2015

Micro planar type liquid propellant thruster was fabricated by MEMS manufacturing process for micro/nano satellites applications. 90 wt.% hydrogen peroxide was used as propellant and for propellant decomposition, Pt/Al2O3 was used as catalyst. Micro thruster structure was made by 5 photosensitive glasses patterned with thruster component profiles. Objective thrust was 50 mN and required hydrogen peroxide mass flow was 2.1 ml/min, which was supplied by syringe pump and teflon tube in experimental test. Performance test said that average steady thrust was approximately 30 mN, around 60% of objective thrust, and transient time was about 5 sec. It is estimated that extended response time was due to high thermal energy loss of micro scale thruster and low enthalpy input by propellant mass flow.

• Proceedings of the International Microelectronics And Packaging Society Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.29-33
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• 2000

MEMS, Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems, present one of the greatest advanced packaging challenges of the next decade. Historically hybrid technology, generally thick film, provided sensors and actuators while integrated circuit technologies provided the microelectronics for interpretation and control of the sensor input and actuator output. Brought together in MEMS these technical fields create new opportunities for miniaturization and performance. Integrated circuit processing technologies combined with hybrid design systems yield innovative sensors and actuators for a variety of applications from single crystal silicon wafers. MEMS packages, far more simple in principle than today's electronic packages, provide only physical protection to the devices they house. However, they cannot interfere with the function of the devices and often must actually facilitate the performance of the device. For example, a pressure transducer may need to be open to atmospheric pressure on one side of the detector yet protected from contamination and blockage. Similarly, an optical device requires protection from contamination without optical attenuation or distortion being introduced. Despite impediments such as package standardization and complexity, MEMS markets expect to double by 2003 to more than ＄9 billion, largely driven by micro-fluidic applications in the medical arena. Like the semiconductor industry before it. MEMS present many diverse demands on the advanced packaging engineering community. With focused effort, particularly on standards and packaging process efficiency. MEMS may offer the greatest opportunity for technical advancement as well as profitability in advanced packaging in the first decade of the 21st century! This paper explores MEMS packaging opportunities and reviews specific technical challenges to be met.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.481-482
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• 2006

Chemical-mechanical polishing, the dominant technology for LSI planarization, is trending to play an important function in micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS). However, MEMS CMP process has a couple of different characteristics in comparison to LSI device CMP since the feature size of MEMS is bigger than that of LSI devices. Preliminary CMP tests are performed to understand material removal rate (MRR) with blanket wafer under a couple of polishing pressure and velocity. Based on the blanket CMP data, this paper focuses on the consumable approach to enhance MEMS CMP by the adjustment of slurry and pad. As a mechanical tool, newly developed microstructured (MS) pad is applied to compare with conventional pad (IC 1400-k Nitta-Haas), which is fabricated by micro melding method of polyurethane. To understand the CMP characteristics in real time, in-situ friction force monitoring system was used. Finally, the topography change of poly-si MEMS structures is compared according to the pattern density, size and shape as polishing time goes on.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.58-63
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• 2011

A low loss radio frequency(RF) micro electro mechanical systems(MEMS) switch driven by a low actuation voltage was designed for the development of a new RF MEMS switch. The RF MEMS switch should be encapsulated. The glass cap and fabricated RF MEMS switch were assembled by the Au/Sn eutectic bonding principle for wafer-level packaging. The through-vias on the glass substrate was made by the glass dry etching and Au electroplating process. The packaged RF MEMS switch had an actuation voltage of 12.5 V, an insertion loss below 0.25 dB, a return loss above 16.6 dB, and an isolation value above 41.4 dB at 6 GHz.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.166-176
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• 2007

Radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have been pursued for more than a decade as a solution of high-performance on-chip fixed, tunable and reconfigurable circuits. This paper reviews our research work on RF MEMS switches and switching circuits in the past five years. The research work first concentrates on the development of lateral DC-contact switches and capacitive shunt switches. Low insertion loss, high isolation and wide frequency band have been achieved for the two types of switches; then the switches have been integrated with transmission lines to achieve different switching circuits, such as single-pole-multi-throw (SPMT) switching circuits, tunable band-pass filter, tunable band-stop filter and reconfigurable filter circuits. Substrate transfer process and surface planarization process are used to fabricate the above mentioned devices and circuits. The advantages of these two fabrication processes provide great flexibility in developing different types of RF MEMS switches and circuits. The ultimate target is to produce more powerful and sophisticated wireless appliances operating in handsets, base stations, and satellites with low power consumption and cost.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.1754-1761
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• 2003

The atomic force microscopy (AFM) based lithographic technique has been used directly to machine material surface and fabricate nano components in MEMS (micro electro mechanical system). In this paper, three-dimensional molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have been conducted to evaluate the characteristic of deformation process at atomistic scale for nano-lithography process. Effects of specific combinations of crystal orientations and cutting directions on the nature of atomistic deformation were investigated. The interatomic force between diamond tool and workpiece of copper material was assumed to be derived from the Morse potential function. The variation of tool geometry and cutting depth was also evaluated and the effect on machinability was investigated. The result of the simulation shows that crystal plane and cutting direction significantly influenced the variation of the cutting forces and the nature of deformation ahead of the tool as well as the surface deformation of the machined surface.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2011.07a
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• pp.1702-1703
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• 2011

MEMS 소자의 Wafer level Package 관련하여 Deep cavity를 가진 Cap Wafer와 Polymer bonding 중 cavity 단차로 인한 Polymer Patterning 및 접합 불량의 어려움을 극복할 수 있는 새로운 공정 flow를 제안하였다. Cavity를 형성할 때 사용하는 Si deep etching Mask인 기존의 Photoresist를 접합용 감광성 Polymer로 대체하고, cavity 형성 후, 별도의 추가 공정 없이 이 Polymer를 이용해 Wafer bonding을 진행하였다. 이를 통해 cavity 단차에 따른 문제를 해결함과 동시에 공정이 단순하고 제작 비용이 저렴하며, 신뢰성 있는 Wafer level Package를 구현하였다.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.12 no.3 s.36
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• pp.187-196
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• 2005

MEMS devices such as a vibratory gyroscope often suffer from a lower yield rate due to fabrication errors and the external stress. In the decoupled vibratory gyroscope, the main factor that determines the yield rate is the frequency difference between the sensing and driving modes. The gyroscope, fabricated with SOI (Silicon-On-Insulator) wafer and packaged using the anodic bonding, has a large wafer bowing caused by thermal expansion mismatch as well as non-uniform surfaces of the structures caused by the notching effect. These effects result in large distribution in the frequency difference, and thereby a lower yield rate. To improve the yield rate we propose a packaged SiOG (Silicon On Glass) technology. It uses a silicon wafer and two glass wafers to minimize the wafer bowing and a metallic membrane to avoid the notching. In the packaged SiOG gyroscope, the notching effect is eliminated and the warpage of the wafer is greatly reduced. Consequently the frequency difference is more uniformly distributed and its variation is greatly improved. Therefore we can achieve a more robust vibratory MEMS gyroscope with a higher yield rate.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.48 no.7
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• pp.523-528
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• 2020

A lateral type MEMS inertial switch was designed on the same principle as spring-mass system. The MEMS switch is used for arming mechanism of the arm-fire device by sensing the applied acceleration. We analyzed the switching capability of the MEMS switch under various acceleration conditions via performance model. Simulation results showed that the MEMS switch works very well at 10 g when the applied acceleration slope does not exceed 10 g/msec. On the other hand, the threshold operating acceleration level simulation exceeded the requirement (10±2 g) due to the width and length of the spring by considering 10% tolerance of the design values. Design modification of doubling the width of the spring, which is difficult to reduce less than 10% tolerance in fabrication process, was proposed after confirming the simulation results comply the requirement.