In situ electrostatic microactuators for measuring the Young's modulus of CMOS thin films

This paper presents an electrostatic microactuator chip for measuring the Young's modulus of thin films. The major feature of this chip is that it contains two electrostatic microactuators which can measure the relationship between the force and the deformation of thin films and evaluate the Young's modulus of aluminum (Al) and silicon dioxide (SiO2) thin films. The chip was fabricated using the 0.6 mum single polysilicon three metal (SPTM) complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process and post-processing. The post-processing depends on only maskless dry etching. Experimental results indicate that the Young's modulus of Al films is 55 +/- 6 GPa and that of SiO2 films is 61 +/- 7 GPa in the 0.6 mum SPTM CMOS process.