Design, Fabrication, and Actuation of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System-Based Image Stabilizer

In this investigation, we present a two dimensional high aspect ratio XY stage, designed as an image stabilizer. This stabilizer is 8 x 8 x 0.75 mm(3), and sufficiently strong to support a suspended image sensor for anti-shaking photographic function. This stabilizer is fabricated by the silicon-on-glass (SOG) process including inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE) processes, in which the anchor layer, pre-etching layer and structure layers are identified without an additional release step as is required in traditional silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer etching process. When an actuator is fabricated, flip-chip bonding is adopted to attach a 3 megapixel image sensor to this device. The longest calculated traveling distance of the stabilizer is 25 mu m and special stoppers are designed to prevent the actuator from moving out of range, and sticking to the side by pull-in phenomenon. Accordingly, the applied voltage at the 25 mu m moving distance is 84 V. Furthermore, the dynamic resonant frequency of the actuating device with an image sensor is 1.013 kHz. (C) 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics