With its high-temperature stability, resistance to a broad range of chemicals, excellent mechanical properties and its monocrystalline structure, silicon is a much used material in microsystems technology.
The large range of available micromachining technologies make structuring of silicon substrates to a very high degree of accuracy possible:
High aspect ratio structures (e.g. comb-drives, trenches, through holes) can be achieved by DRIE etching.
Batch-wise wet etching in alkaline solutions can be used for etching anisotropic structures such as cavities, using the monocrystalline nature of the material.
Thin film deposition and patterning of various materials (PZT layers, metal vias, bondpads, dielectric thin films) can be used to create functional structures/layers.
Silicon is the material of choice when it comes to fabrication and integration of sensors, electronic circuits and CMOS, for example in bioMEMS applications. It allows combining CMOS technology with MEMS technology and microfluidics, which are becoming essential traits of the newest labs-on-chips for health and life science applications.
The use of hybrid material combinations in highly functional devices is essential to this end. At Micronit, we can combine the machining of glass, polymers, as well as silicon, in order to choose the fitting material combination for your application.