Fully-integrated resonant micro-devices for next-generation electronic systems

如今，在消费电子、汽车和工业等多个商业领域，微电子机械系统(MEMS)已成为实现用户、环境和系统电子“大脑”之间有效接口的重要载体。尤其是谐振型MEMS器件已被广泛应用于电信号滤波、惯性传感、超声换能器和气体检测等高性能任务。然而，MEMS技术尚未充分发挥其颠覆性潜力，因为它仍然主要局限于复杂电子系统中的分立集成方案。事实上，缺乏单片集成MEMS和集成电路(IC)的可行方法对商业产品造成了功能、性能和经济方面的限制，例如：不能将几个类似或不同类别的MEMS器件集成到单个IC管芯上；多个管芯导致更大的系统尺寸；由于与多个管芯之间的互连有关的电寄生效应而导致的高功耗；由于在不同的芯片上分开制造IC和MEMS，导致更大的成本(例如，材料、加工、物流)。因此，拟议的研究计划试图发现并提出对以下问题的答案：如何克服当前的技术限制，以使集成IC和MEMS的下一代系统能够完全单片集成？基于先前实现的单片集成的进展，我们认为，解决我们的研究问题围绕着探索谐振式MEMS的IC以上集成的最佳方法的长期目标(LTO)。随着这种LTO知识的不断发展，预计将为系统设计者提供一种方法和技术框架，以将MEMS作为集总单元元件无缝地集成到IC上。这一LTO将通过两个短期目标(STO)来实现：提出包含压电驱动的优化谐振式MEMS的新拓扑结构，以及阐述一种用于优化谐振式MEMS集成电路集成的新型制造平台技术。建议方法的可行性将通过第三个STO进行评估：展示使用精心设计的拓扑和制造平台的新型集成谐振器件。第二个LTO为HQP提供微技术方面的多学科专业知识，该研究计划预计将对用于设计和生产基于电子的商业产品的方法、方法和技术产生颠覆性影响。因此，这项工作的成果将为加拿大的社会、工业和研究界提供长期的价值。

Nowadays, in several commercial sectors such as Consumer Electronics, Automotive and Industrial, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have established themselves as an essential vector in enabling an effective interface between the user, the environment and a system's electronic "brain". Particularly, resonant-type MEMS devices have been widely demonstrated to fulfill high-performance tasks including electrical signal filtering, inertial sensing, ultrasonic transduction and gas detection. However, MEMS technology has yet to achieve its full disruptive potential because it is still predominantly restricted to discrete integration schemes for inclusion within complex electronic systems. Indeed, the lack of viable methods for monolithically integrating MEMS and integrated circuits (IC) imposes functional, performance-related, and economic limitations on commercial products such as: the inability to incorporate several MEMS devices of similar or different class onto a single IC die; larger system size resulting from multiple dice; high power consumption because of the electrical parasitic effects related to the interconnections between multiple dice; greater costs (e.g., materials, processing, logistics) due to separate IC and MEMS fabrication on distinct dice.Consequently, the proposed research program attempts to discover and propose answers to the question: How can current technological limitations be overcome in order to enable fully-monolithic next generation systems incorporating IC and MEMS?Founding this program on prior advances realized towards monolithic integration, we hold that solving our research question revolves around the long-term objective (LTO) of exploring optimal approaches for above-IC integration of resonant MEMS. Advancing knowledge along this LTO is expected, at term, to provide system designers with a methodology and technological framework for seamlessly incorporating MEMS as lumped-cell elements on IC. This LTO will be attained by means of two short-term objectives (STO): to propose novel topologies for optimal resonant MEMS incorporating piezoelectric actuation, and to elaborate a novel fabrication platform technology for optimal IC integration of resonant MEMS. The viability of the proposed methods will be assessed by a third STO: to demonstrate novel integrated resonant devices using the elaborated topologies and fabrication platform.With a second LTO of providing HQP with multi-disciplinary expertise in microtechnologies, this research program is expected to exert a disruptive impact on the approach, methods and techniques used for designing and producing electronics-based commercial products. As such, the outcomes of this work will provide long-lasting value to Canada's society, industry and research community.