Package Designs and Associated Challenges for Environment Sensitive MEMS Sensors

Effective packaging of MEMS devices has lagged the development of unique sensors suitable for a variety of applications. Packaging challenges are often what prevent wider application and extensive commercialization of MEMS Sensors. MEMS devices are designed for sensing the environment. Their detection capability should not be adversely impacted by the package and the package reliability should not be compromised by the environment. Two different Sensor applications are used to highlight the packaging challenges. In one case the Sensor electrical output response was becoming nonlinear in the range of valid operating temperatures after packaging. The ASIC controller was not able to compensate for this nonlinearity. In the second application package design caused electrical response resonance within the operating environment range. Advanced package design methodology was developed to couple simulations for package reliability prediction for different failure modes with Sensor performance predictions to deliver cost effective and reliable packages. The predictive design methodology was extensively validated with experimental results at every stage.