A survey of Mechanical failure and design for Reliability of MEMS

In this paper, several experimental mechanical investigation techniques are presented to evaluate the reliability of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Microsystems in recent years have spread in many everyday devices. We find micro-scale sensors and actuators in automotive, biomedical and aerospace applications where are demanded very strict performance requirements. Electromechanical non-linear coupling is often a crucial problem both in design and also for the reliability of the system. Mechanism of failure and failure modes has to be taken into account in order to evaluate the reliability of the final system. Focusing on device failure, it emerges that mechanical damage is the most significant source. In this paper a survey of recent advance in mechanical testing of MEMS is presented including: mechanical fatigue, mechanical strength and plasticity, surface and contact failure and creep. Different design of testing specimens is discussed to identify the material properties and failure modes behavior in order to obtain design rules and strategies.