A study on wafer level vacuum packaging for MEMS devices

A new vacuum packaging process at the wafer level is developed for the surface micromachining devices using glass-silicon anodic bonding technology. The rim for the glass-silicon bonding process which is needed to prevent vacuum leakage is built up simultaneously as the structure is being etched. The mechanical resonator is used as a tool for evaluating the vacuum level of the packaging. The inside pressure of the packaged device was measured indirectly by measuring the quality factor of the mechanical resonator. The measured Q factor was about 5 x 10(4) and the estimated inner pressure was about 1 mTorr. It is also possible to change the inside pressure of the packaged devices from 2 Torr to 1 mTorr by varying the amount of Ti getter material. The yield of the vacuum packaging process is about 80% and vacuum degradation was not observed after 1000 h had passed. The developed vacuum packaging process is also applied to resonant accelerometers which need a high vacuum environment to implement higher performance.