Micro-assembly of microelectromechanical components into 3-D MEMS

This work describes a proposed micro-assembly process for combining planar microcomponents, 60 to 200 μm in size, into three-dimensional (3-D) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The microcomponents and microgrippers proposed are to be fabricated using multi-user MEMS processes (MUMPS). Currently, micro-assembly research can be classified into two main areas. One area involves batch or parallel micro-assembly, while the other area involves sequential robotic micro-assembly. This work proposes the use of sequential robotic manipulations for the micro-assembly of MEMS. The micro-assembly process can be divided into three major steps: (1) attaching a MEMS microgripper to a large five-axis manipulator, (2) grasping microcomponents with the MEMS microgripper, and (3) joining the microcomponents together using self-locking (snap-lock) geometrical features. This three-step micro-assembly process should create 3-D MEMS devices that cannot be constructed with current techniques.