IMT offers the most complete wafer fabrication services, featuring the largest pure MEMS production fab and most extensive suite of tools of any independent manufacturer to meet our customers' high-volume production requirement and foundry services
• 30,000 ft2 class 100 cleanroom fab for manufacturing 6" wafers. • Technical staff with extensive experience in MEMS design, prototyping, and process development. • Complete analytical, metrology, and test capabilities for high-volume manufacturing with sqc/spc. • Volume foundry service for MEMS-specific or other wafer processing work. • Flexibility to develop and bring in new technologies.
IMT has 20 different targets constantly under vacuum in multiple production-class cluster tools, from RF and DC magnetron systems to LPCVD and PECVD, as well as thermal oxidation and annealing furnaces. A short list of deposition experience includes the following:
Electroplating capability enables creating tall structural and functional features, such as molds, conductive coils, magnets, actuators, etc.
Some of the plating metals include the following: NiFe, Ni, NiCo, Au, Cu, and solder
Thickness: from 1 µm up to 50 µm
Having the ability to deposit or plate metals is only half the story. Wet chemistry capability complements our plating and deposition by allowing selective removal of materials
Wet etch experience includes the following: Au, Cu, Ni, Si, Al, Ti, TiW, Cr, NiFe, SiO2, Si3N4, Al2O3
Wafer thinning capability is a key tool for reducing the overall profile of a device or to expose materials that are embedded in the wafer.
Wafer grinding: +/- 1 µm thickness precision
Chemical Mechanical Polishing complements wafer thinning capability, which involves planarization and polishing to return the substrate surface to continue down the front end processing.
Over 50% of all wafers produced at IMT are wafer bonded. It is a key technology in MEMS, necessary for wafer-level packaging and encapsulation and for creating 3D microfluidics. IMT works closely with the customers' needs to determine the bonding method that includes the following:
Au-Au thermal compression
Glass frit
Anodic
Fusion
Metal alloy (low temperature)
Polymer
With the exception of polymer bonding, IMT's bonding allows hermetic wafer-level packaging to reduce the cost of post-process die-level packaging and to improve the performance and reliability of the MEMS. Depending on the bonding method and hermeticity requirements, capabilities include the following:
Sub-1 mTorr high vacuum bonding using getter
> 99% hermeticity yields in production – hermeticity verified by probing on-board thermistors
Vacuum, atmospheric, or partial pressure with unique gases
Although not hermetic, polymer bonding is useful for fabricating microfluidics, creating fluidic channels. Frequently, multiple bonding methods can be combined to achieve the desired final packaging. In addition to hermeticity requirements, other considerations include:
Design/device footprint
Temperature budget
Materials used
Final packaging and environmental requirements
After bonding, the wafers are protected from environment and fragile MEMS structures are protected. These wafers can continue on-ward, through die singulation and die-level packaging.
In-process electrical testing of wafers includes various measurements, such as:
Capacitance
Resistance
Inductance
Isolation
High potential
Having this knowledge enables saving costs of producing devices. The end customer would only receive known-good-dies. IMT also offers reliability, environmental, and life testing, as well as other custom testing specific to individual customer's applications.
In sampling quantities to modest volume, IMT offers die-level processing and assembly for packaging. IMT also has strategic partnerships to meet our customers' higher volume production assembly requirements:
Multiple qualified partners for standard and custom solutions
The ability to obtain characteristics and measurements of devices and materials helps in verifying wafer processing and failure analysis. IMT's comprehensive metrology capability allows us to measure cross-section, CDs, thickness, width, optical, roughness, reflectivity, composition, etc. The following lists some of the capabilities at IMT:
Close collaboration and partnership are required for success. Starting from the initial design review, development and prototyping to product engineering and volume production.
