What does the MEMS Design class cover?
This 16-week class of 16 sessions spends the first 8 seesions mostly with lectures on the vairous aspects of the technologies and processes that enable the fabrication of these small devices. The class is also introduced to the design tool and has a number of exercises to gain experience on how AutoCAD and the Sandia extensions are used to design 3-D structures. The second 8 sessions are mostly design exercises to design specific device types that represent the dominate products in the marketplace today.
Overview of class content
Nanotechnology and Integrated Circuits - Nanotechnology is a logical extension of MEMS and the two technologies will work together in a number of future applications. MEMS are fabricated using techniques and technologies from the Semiconductor industry. It is also imortant to understand IC Design because most MEMS devices require ICs as part of the Total Product Package.
Overview of MEMS - An Overview is helpful to understand all the components of the solution before exploring in detail each of the important design and fabrication technologies.
Materials, Processes, Applications and Packaging - The bulk of the lectures are spent exploring these topics.
Sandia Processing Technology - It is necessary to understand the target process to understand the trade offs inherent in any MEMS design. How are the layers constructed, how do they relate to each other, what are the materials and how do they interact.
Sandia Design and VisualizationTools - This unique set of tools are used to design the structures. The visualizations tools are used to simulate the fabrication process to verify the validity of the design.
Series of Design Exercises - There will be 5 or 6 design projects of devices used in products today.
About the Instructor
John Tiede has a degree in Electrical Engineering. Employed by IBM (30 years), Motorola (3 years), Silicon Valley Research (1 year) and has been teaching at Austin Community College since 1998. He redesigned the 3 course series for the Integrated Circuit Physical Design sequence in 2001. He designed this course in 2004.
References
Course Syllabus - Intro to MEMS Textbook - Wikipedia - Sandia