New MEMS silicon substrate standard helps everyone in the industry – Okmetic greatly involved in SEMI Manufacturing Working Group’s standardization and guideline work
SEMI Manufacturing Working Group has introduced new MEMS silicon substrate standard document in late 2019 to help ordering substrate material to new MEMS products and to reduce the variation in the specifications by eliminating the one wafer-one process mind set already in the beginning of the electronics value chain. Okmetic had a leading role in the MEMS silicon substrate standardization process as a result of its #1 supplier position for MEMS manufacturing and Silicon-On-Insulator expertise.
The standardization process started in the beginning of 2018 after SEMI Manufacturing Working Group identified a need for a MEMS silicon substrate standard as the mechanical features of various MEMS devices require particular substrate configurations which differ significantly from substrates used in traditional semiconductor device production. The standard is especially useful to new players in the field that have not ordered such material before as it provides all necessary information for ordering and specifying silicon substrates. The standard also makes it possible for the silicon suppliers to stock standard material which lowers time to purchase, time to market and overall cost thus benefiting the entire value chain.
Working Group does diverse work
“The objective of the SEMI Manufacturing Working Group is not just to introduce new standards but help overall Manufacturing Environment for MEMS and Sensors”, says Okmetic’s North American Customer Support Manager Petri Santala who has been actively taking part in the Working Group’s work since 2018. “At the moment there is a lot of interesting things going on as we are finalizing a guide for test patterns characterizing Deep Reactive Ion Etch and studying on different approaches to reliability standards as well as paying attention to the challenges of packaging and integration side in MEMS. We are also considering new ways to increase the awareness / activities going on with the group and to attract new dynamic members with various background to strengthen this relatively small group’s abilities”, concludes Santala.
