Smartflex - Laminated MEMS and Microfluidics

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Sensors are key enablers for the increasingly connected environment that we live in, acting as the link between the physical and cyber worlds. They are creating the fourth Industrial revolution and the Internet-of-Things (IoT), which rely centrally on data acquired with sensors, with over 30 billion connected objects expected by 2020. These sensors typically consist of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) transducers packaged with other chips (microprocessor, radio) and a power source to be wireless. Power however remains a key roadblock to create truly wireless and long lasting distributed sensors due to the high cost of deployment for wired installations or regular battery replacements. Approaches to power sensor nodes by harvesting energy from the ambient are therefore currently under development, such as converting waste heat into electricity. Although computing and sensing functions can typically be miniaturised using silicon wafer manufacturing, energy harvesting requires surface area. It is therefore not possible to be cost effective when making the harvesting element using traditional Si wafer manufacturing. In addition, the cost of packaging the chips, interconnecting them and providing an enclosure for the wireless sensor node are typically well beyond the cost of the semiconductor chips. The limiting aspects to realise the vision of low cost, pervasive wireless sensors for IoT is therefore not necessarily the MEMS itself, but the packaging and power. A paradigm shift is required to re-center the sensor development on the power and packaging, instead of building around the MEMS and microelectronic chips. We propose a sensor fabrication platform inspired from flexible PCBs, but where the flex layers integrate the energy harvesting functions, as well as the chips. This Smartflex platform will also enable the direct implementation of sensing and actuation functions within the layers, such as for large area sensor arrays (smart skin) and robotic grasping actuators. The three main challenges to enable this platform are to: 1) create released structures and flexible interconnects within a layered stack of flexible sheets to allow reliable interconnects and embedded sensing/harvesting with deformable structures; 2) Embed functional materials by film deposition, molding and pick-and-place to add transduction mechanisms as well as thermal or electrical conduction paths; 3) Form hermetic microchannels, filling and sealing methods for fluid integration in the flexible stacks. The scope of work covers novel materials and processes, design, fabrication to characterisation, and will train HQP at the intersection of MEMS, advanced packaging and printed electronics, ready to deliver the future.