Transducers 2021 | 20-25 June 2021

Short courses will be offered online in the week preceding the conference. All lectures will be pre-recorded and accessible on-demand through a unique code. To foster interactions between instructors and attendees, live Q&A sessions will be organized before the conference (19-21 June 2021). During these live sessions, questions asked by the attendees will be answered by the presenters in the form of a panel discussion.

	Registration Deadline On or Before 10-JUN-2021
Short Course 1 - Key Technologies Available In Nanofabrication Centers Worldwide	$0
Short Course 2 - Towards System-Level Modeling and High-Fidelity Simulations of MEMS: Challenges, State-of-the-Art, Perspectives	$0

Registration includes one-time access to each short course, the course material, and attendance to one of the live Q&A sessions. There is no fee to attend the short courses but registration is required, and no access will be granted without prior registration by 10 June 2021.

Short Course 1: Key Technologies Available in Nanofabrication Centers Worldwide

Live Question & Answer:
For Short Course I, there will be two different sets of presentations and discussions, so we encourage you to attend both sessions and ask questions live.
Saturday, 19 June, 12:00 - 14:20 GMT/UTC
Monday, 21 June, 07:00 - 09:20 GMT/UTC

For any sensor or actuator concept, the ability to fabricate it by using Nanofabrication technologies is of uttermost importance for its future viability. Nanofabrication technologies are constantly evolving and the new opportunities they offer can significantly impact on the performance of devices or the ease and cost of their manufacturing. For instance, innovations in manufacturing details (e.g. the use of bio-compatible or high-temperature resistant materials) can broaden the scope of applications for these devices. Likewise, innovations in packaging techniques can simplify their manufacture and lower their price. However, there are many nanofabrication technologies available in nanofabrication centers that have had little or no application to the manufacturing of sensors/actuators. This session aims to present original technologies available in nanofabrication centers to the sensor & actuator's research community, in order to offer them new possibilities of realization and hopefully, make major innovations possible.

It aims to give the floor to nanofabrication centers that wish to promote their "non-classical" (original) technologies and think that these technologies can be used by the sensors & actuators research community.

Who Should Attend:
The audience will be composed of Transducers conference participants, who wish to be informed on new technologies in order to use them in their sensor/actuators design activity.

Discussion A:
Saturday, 19 June, 12:00 - 14:20 GMT/UTC

Agenda

PRESENTATION NANOTECH PLATFORM
Yoshio Mita
University of Tokyo Nanofab Center, Nanotechnology Platform, JAPAN

PRESENTATION EURONANOLAB
Michel de Labachelerie
EuroNanoLab, Renatech, FRANCE

PRESENTATION NEP/NFFA
Luis Fonseca
IMB-CNM (CSIC), SPAIN

Short Course Presentations

4D THERMOELASTIC MICRO-ACTUATOR BASED ON METAMATERIAL STRUCTURE
Johnny Moughames
FEMTO-ST, FRANCE

Hide Description

Thermoelastic metamaterial devices, which provide fundamental mechanical rotation and translation, based on thermally actuated bilayers. The coupled materials exhibit different thermal expansion coefficients & Young's modulus. Direct laser-writing 2 photon lithography using a femtosecond pulsed laser. Samples are built from a single material (Ip-Dip resin) using single-step lithography and each part of the bilayer was exposed to a different laser power.

EXPERIMENTAL COMPARISON OF RAPID LARGE-AREA DIRECT ELECTRON BEAM EXPOSURE METHODS WITH PLASMONIC DEVICES
Akio Higo
University of Tokyo, JAPAN

Hide Description

Recent technologies for Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) provide submicron shapes writing in a short time (less than an hour for 4-inch writing), thereby enabling many NEMS devices. In this tutorial, we report an efficient method to evaluate the quality of EBL and subsequent etching processes (i.e. nanometric critical dimensions) by a simple optical spectrum. Periodic nano holes array (NHA) pattern has been identified to be a good test structure because its plasmonic characteristics is sensitive to the local size variation. The method has been validated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and scanning probe microscopy (SPM).

SILICON NITRIDE PLATFORM FOR PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUITS, TRANSDUCERS, AND ACTUATORS: AN OPEN ACCESS FOUNDRY
Jad Sabek
IMB-CNM (CSIC), SPAIN

Hide Description

Silicon nitride is important for Si technology due to its transparency (from the visible to far IR), low losses, thermal stability, and absence of birefringence for PIC applications. We established an open access photonic foundry based on Si3N4 technology CMOS fab., with process design kits (PDKs) possibly in a MPW approach. An example of MPW & dedicated processes is shown. We will present 2 examples for bio-sensing applications:
- one is based on a silicon nitride bimodal waveguide with low limit of detection, improving the Mach Zehnder performance and now used for the development of a Cov-19 rapid detection device.
- the second is a Nanoscopy device based on total internal reflection fluorescence structures (TIRF) with Si3N4 technology.

OVERVIEW ON INTEGRATED OPTICAL PLATFORMS FOR EVANESCENT FIELD SENSING
Georg Pucker
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, ITALY<

Hide Description

Integrated optical circuits such as silicon Oxynitride (SiON), silicon nitride (SiNx) or silicon on isolator (SOI) waveguides with propagation losses in the order of 2dB/cm. Has been used for sensing Aflatoxin M1 a potent carcinogen with a detection limit of 1.6nM. The platform allows integration of PIN detectors (responsivity of 0.55 A/W).

LITHOGRAPHY ON NON-FLAT 3-D SURFACE
Minoru Sasaki
Toyota Institute of Technology, JAPAN

Hide Description

Many MEMS devices have 3-dimensionl (3-D) structures being fabricated taking the advantages of the photolithography realizing the high-throughput processing many points at the same time. However, the photolithography is only effective to the planer sample. Therefore, many MEMS researcher may long for the process technique which can apply to the 3-D samples. Here, a new technique of 3-D photolithography is explained. Newly introduced is a sheet (SO sheet, Aicello Corp. Japan) which has the polyvinyl alcohol layer (water-soluble polymer). On that, the photoresist can be spin-coated and patterned. This resist sheet with the latent image is pasted on non-flat 3-D sample. After dissolving the polyvinyl alcohol layer using water and the subsequent development of the resist, the resist pattern can be obtained. The arbitrary pattern with the fine dimension can be realized using the standard resist coater and the mask aligner.

NANOSTRUCTURING PROCESS TO MINIMIZE REFLECTIVE LOSSES IN OPTOELECTRONIC DEVICES
Päivikki Repo
Aalto University, FINLAND

Hide Description

Reflective losses should be reduced in Si solar cells & photodetectors and NIR Ge sensors. Our solution is based on an ICP-RIE to create sub-wavelength nanostructured SC. The main benefits is low consumption of the base material (< 2 µm Si or <5 µm Ge), applicable to thin wafers. It is capable of producing uniform nanostructures on both large area substrates and wafers with small openings, demonstrating a high applicability to sensor manufacturing. However, it can lead to increased carrier recombination but this was solved by passivating the nanostructured surface with ALD or various other films. It already enabled high sensitivity devices and numerous applications.

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ETCH BEHAVIOR OF PMMA TREATED VIA SEQUENTIAL INFILTRATION SYNTHESIS FOR HIGH-ASPECT-RATIO NANOMETER-SCALE FEATURE ETCHING
Jorge Barreda
Lurie Nanofabrication Facility, University of Michigan, USA

Hide Description

Plasma etching nanoscale features with a high-aspect-ratio is a challenge. This is particularly difficult for common e-beam resists such as PMMA which has poor selectivity for most dry etching processes. In this work, we present a treatment of PMMA that increases its selectivity for dry etching. To enhance the etch resistance of the resist, we treat it via sequential infiltration synthesis in an ALD system with Al2O3. The etching rate of the PMMA was evaluated under different fluorine-based dry etching recipes. An enhancement in the strength of the resist was always observed. In this presentation, the preliminary results will be presented, and the investigated parameters and their impact will be discussed.

Discussion B:
Monday, 21 June, 07:00 - 09:20 GMT/UTC

Agenda

PRESENTATION ANFF
Mariusz Martyniuk
University of Western Australia, AUSTRALIA

PRESENTATION NANOTECH PLATFORM
Yoshio Mita
University of Tokyo Nanofab Center, Nanotechnology Platform, JAPAN

PRESENTATION EURONANOLAB
Michel de Labachelerie
EuroNanoLab, Renatech, FRANCE

PRESENTATION NEP/NFFA
Luis Fonseca
IMB-CNM (CSIC), SPAIN

Short Course Presentations

FABRICATION OF CYCLO-OLEFIN POLYMER-BASED MICROFLUIDIC DEVICE USING WATER VAPOR PLASMA ACTIVATED BONDING
Toshiyuki Tsuchiya
Kyoto University, JAPAN

Hide Description

Microfluidic devices based on cyclo-olefin polymer (COP) are attracted attentions because of its excellent features such as chemical stability, UV transparency, low autofluorescence and low water absorption and biocompatibility. Recently, room temperature bonding technology of COP with glass and silicon substrate assisted by water vapor plasma is introduced to realize multifunctional microfluidic devices. In this tutorial, water vapor plasma treatment technology and its applications are introduced. Then, the fabrication of COP microchannel structures using imprint process and bonding assisted by the water vapor plasma are presented.

MAGNETORESISTIVE-BASED LAB-ON-CHIP: STATIC AND DYNAMIC CONFIGURATIONS
Verónica C. Romão
INESC, PORTUGAL

Hide Description

Magnetic-labelled entities flow inside a micrometric channel aligned with an array of Spin Valve sensors that detect the magnetic fringe field coming from the flowing entities. These magnetic flow cytometers are used to rapidly count cells in biological samples, with simple processing steps on the sample. In rectal swab samples detection of K. pneumoniae was proven in the range of 103 cells/mL, in less than 20 min.

UPSCALABLE CLEANROOM FABRICATION PROCESSES FOR GRAPHENE FIELD-EFFECT TRANSISTORS
Jérôme Borme
INL, PORTUGAL

Hide Description

GFET functionalized with DNA have an atto-molar limit of detection for the matching DNA enabling early diagnosis of infectious diseases & some cancers. A process for graphene FET with a graphene channel exposed at the surface, that is compatible with standard cleanroom tools on 200 mm silicon wafers is proposed.

3-D LITHOGRAPHY USING RAPID LASER WRITER
Kentaro Totsu
Tohoku University, JAPAN

Hide Description

3-D (grayscale) lithography is widely used for fabrication of micro-optical components such as a microlens array, a Fresnel lens, a diffractive optical element (DOE). Particularly, maskless exposure technology utilizing a laser writer realizes rapid prototyping of micro 3-D structures at low cost. The exposure depth in a low-contrast positive photoresist on a substrate is precisely controlled by modulating the laser intensity corresponding to the design of micro 3-D structure. Although the technology is getting common, optimizing many process parameters regarding photoresist coating, baking, laser exposure and development is still complicated. The difficulty is significant when we handle thick photoresist. This short course will introduce process technique to achieve a desired micro 3-D structure and examples of fabrication process utilizing a laser writer (DWL2000, Heidelberg Instruments) with 1024 gray levels, at our open facility named Hands-on Access Fabrication Facility, Tohoku University.

PRE-INDUSTRIAL GAN DEVICES DEVELOPED AT THE NANOFABRICATION CENTER OF IEMN
Farid Medjdoub
IEMN, FRANCE

Hide Description

GaN technology offers a platform for integration of low-loss, piezoelectric RF MEMS resonators and can tolerate large variations of temperature & humidity compared to metal-oxides, which is highly desired for sensing applications or MEMS in harsh environment. Two GaN technologies for RF & power applications will be presented showing state-of-the-art performance while reaching a TRL 4 thanks to a shared processing with foundries. Key active devices are fabricated in the academic environment whereas passives elements and backend were carried out by a foundry.

MEMS PROCESS WITH DEPOSITION STRESS CONTROL
Yukio Suzuki
Tohoku University, JAPAN

Hide Description

In the fabrication processes of microsystems, deposition film stress is one of the most critical issues to be controlled. In the past, some innovative fabrication processes of microsystems were developed based on stress-controlled film deposition techniques. For example, major MEMS inertia sensors are mass-produced by epitaxial polysilicon (epi-poly Si) technology, where a stress-free thick poly-Si film on a sacrificial SiO2 layer is used. In this session, I will introduce the stress control of the deposition film technique, plasma CVD SiO2 and SiN and electro-plating Cu including microstructure fabrication example. A large-area fragile microstructure of an infrared (IR) cut grid filter for laser produced plasma extreme ultraviolet (LPP EUV) light sources was successfully fabricated by stress balancing technique by film stress control of the plasma CVD film as the sacrificial layer. I also explain an example of stress-free thick Cu (THK. ~20 µm), which is required as a heat sink film for DUV-LED wafer packaging, deposited by electro-plating technique.

OPTICAL MEMS-BASED SPECTRALLY ADAPTIVE REMOTE SENSING AND IMAGING AT THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN NODE OF THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL FABRICATION FACILITY
Mariusz Martyniuk
University of Western Australia, AUSTRALIA

Hide Description

We present MEMS optical filter technologies available at the Western Australian node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility capable of adaptive low-voltage electrostatic tuning of spectral selectivity in wavelength bands spanning the IR and THz parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The anticipated feature of future generation remote infrared (IR) sensing and imaging technologies includes adding so-called multi-colour capabilities, which allow real-time spectral information to be gathered from multiple wavelength bands. Multi/hyper-spectral imaging results in improved target recognition and is applicable to numerous remote sensing spectroscopy/imaging applications. In order to provide a reduced size, weight and power (SWaP) solution, a micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) based electrically tunable adaptive filter technology has been developed for important IR and emerging THz bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Short Course 2: Towards System-Level Modeling and High-Fidelity Simulations of MEMS: Challenges, State-of-the-Art, Perspectives

Live Question & Answer:
The short course will be organized as a 2-hour live session with Q&A. Three presentations will give an overview of today's challenges in, approaches to, and state of the art of system level modeling of MEMS.

The live sessions are scheduled on Sunday, 20 June and are identical, so you do not have to attend both. The live presentations will be recorded and will be provided approximately one hour after each session on the conference platform if you are not able to attend. Supplementary pre-recorded material will also be provided containing information on specific applications and tools on the platform.

Sunday, 20 June, 12:00 - 14:00 GMT/UTC
Sunday, 20 June, 19:00 - 21:00 GMT/UTC

Virtual fabrication, virtual experimentation and test using computer simulations are already an integral part of the design methodology for microelectromechanical devices and systems in order to realize cost-efficient and time-economizing development cycles. It enables the detailed analysis of the device and system operation of competing design variants in a very early stage of the development process. A successful design strategy requires modelling methodologies on different levels of abstraction and computational expense. Since, by their nature as sensors or actuators, the constituent components of a microsystem link different energy and signal domains such as mechanical, fluidic, thermal, electrical, and other physical or chemical quantities, an important aspect will be the physically consistent treatment of coupled fields and coupled energy and signal domains on the device and on the system level in an accurate, but yet efficient manner.

Modelling and simulation on the continuous-field level (such as finite element analysis) prove to be useful, when a single physical energy domain or a specific subcomponent is subject to optimization, but become computationally expensive, when multiple coupled energy domains with all their mutual interactions have to be considered. Optimal prototyping of microsystems, however, requires the concurrent co-optimization of transducer elements and their control circuitry. However, full system analysis on the continuous-field level becomes prohibitive due to non-linear coupling mechanisms between different energy domains and the huge number of degrees of freedom to be considered for complex 3D device geometries. Therefore, reduced-order and system-level modelling techniques have to be employed as they constitute the key to the predictive simulation of entire microsystems.

Presentations

HIGH-FIDELITY MODELING FOR HIGH-PERFORMANCE MEMS
Sam Zhang
Analog Devices, USA

Hide Description

Accurate and reliable MEMS sensors will be required in next-generation autonomous inertial navigation and condition-based monitoring (CbM) applications. For example, inertial measurement units (IMUs) intended for autonomous navigation systems, must achieve high speed sensing and immunity to environmental disturbance, while MEMS accelerometers intended for CbM systems must deliver low noise and high sensitivity, while also being smaller than traditional designs. This presentation will introduce the design challenges and development of high stability and low noise inertial sensors and highlight the state-of-the-art performance that has been achieved at Analog Devices. The appropriate device and system level simulation methodology is key to the successful design of such sensors and it will be discussed in the presentation.

This presentation will also introduce Analog Devices' high-performance MEMS design flow with a focus on stress and offset stability modelling. We will dive deep in the key challenges in high fidelity MEMS models with a real gyroscope product design case study. Finally, we will discuss further MEMS multiphysics modeling directions in stability, reliability and system level modeling, which will lead to the Part 2 and 3 of the short course.

Hide Biography

Sam Zhang is an Analog Devices Fellow and a principal designer and innovator of ADI's high-performance inertial MEMS products, including the company's first three-axis accelerometer and first MEMS microphone. To date, Sam has been awarded over 32 U.S. patents and over 40 international patents. His latest ground-breaking contributions have been in the areas of ultralow noise accelerometers and ultrahigh stability gyroscopes, reshaping the way condition-based monitoring and inertial navigation are being addressed today. His efforts are modernizing the inertial sensing industry from single-point monitoring to diagnostic networks and are being applied across such areas as general machinery, healthcare, and autonomous vehicles. Sam holds a BS and a BA degree from Tsinghua University and a MS degree from the George Washington University, in the fields of electrical and mechanical engineering.

VIRTUAL PROTOTYPING OF MEMS BY SYSTEM-LEVEL MODELING: CONCEPTS, APPROACHES AND TOOLS
Gabriele Schrag
Technical University of Munich, GERMANY

Hide Description

There are several approaches to derive models suited for simulation on system-level. After the presentation of the challenges, demands and specific aspects of high-fidelity modelling of modern, industrially manufactured, state-of-the-art sensor and actuator systems and approaches to cope with exemplary use cases (part one of this course), the scope of this second part is to give an overview of the today´s state-of-the-art modelling strategies and simulation methodologies for system-level modelling.

The presentation starts with an overview on specific aspects in microsystems modelling and the prerequisites that have to be fulfilled by a reliable and predictive design environment on system level. Then, the framework of generalized Kirchhoffian networks will be introduced as a powerful methodological basis for setting up multi-energy domain-coupled system-level models, followed by an overview on approaches for deriving and realizing compact and reduced order models. The focus of this presentation is laid upon physically based compact and mixed-level (finite network) modelling, which is introduced for the use case of modelling damping effects in (highly) perforated micro devices and exemplified by the application to acoustic transducers.

An overview on MEMS-specific software tools on the market concludes this talk. Supplementary information can be found in the pre-recorded video material by the selected software suppliers offering MEMS-specific solutions.

Hide Biography

Gabriele Schrag is currently Professor ad interim at the Chair of Physics of Electrotechnology of the Technical University of Munich. Her group works in the field of modeling and design of MEMS with a specific focus on virtual prototyping and predictive simulation methodologies, parameter extraction, and model verification for microdevices and microsystems. She studied physics at the University of Stuttgart and received her doctorate (with honors) and her venia legendi from the Technical University of Munich. She acts as a reviewer and technical program committee member for various journals and conferences and has authored and co-authored more than 130 publications. Together with Prof. T. Bechtold and Dr. Lihong Feng she edited and co-authored the book "System-level Modeling of MEMS" (Wiley VHC). She received the Eurosensors Fellow award in 2019.

MATHEMATICAL MODEL ORDER REDUCTION FOR MEMS: BACKGROUND, TECHNICAL REALIZATION AND APPLICATION TO SPECIFIC DEMONSTRATOR SYSTEMS
Tamara Bechtold
Jade University of Applied Sciences, GERMANY

Hide Description

The availability of mathematical models is essential for the design, analysis and control of modern technical systems. With the increase of computational power, the complexity of these mathematical descriptions increases as well, which maintains the computational needs above the available possibilities. This is especially true for microsystems, whose operation is determined by multiple energy domains and their respective couplings. Furthermore, microsystems often exhibit complex geometrical structures. Modelling these features on continuum level (by partial differential equations) and numerically simulating them by, e.g., the finite element method, requires a time integration of very large scale (order >100.000) nonlinear ordinary differential equation systems. Mathematical methods of Model Order Reduction (MOR) offer the possibility to replace the high dimensional model with a lower dimensional surrogate, such that the computational time can be significantly reduced while preserving the accuracy of the original numerical model. Reduced order models can be used at the system-level for prediction, analysis and control.

This presentation aims at explaining the working principle of projection-based model order reduction methods and demonstrates a successful application of MOR to a number of state-of-the-art microsystems. Finally, a life demonstration of how to reduce a typical micro device with the state-of-the-art tool 'Model Reduction inside ANSYS` and the subsequent system-level simulation with 'ANSYS Twin Builder' will be given.

Hide Biography

Tamara Bechtold obtained her MSc in microelectronics and microsystems engineering from the University of Bremen, Germany, in 2000, and her PhD in microsystem simulation from the University of Freiburg, Germany, in 2005. Between 2006 and 2010, Dr. Bechtold worked as an experienced researcher for Philips Research Laboratories and NXP Semiconductors in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The objective of her research work was to enhance the standard IC design flow through model order reduction and optimization modules. From 2010 to 2011, Dr. Bechtold was with CADFEM GmbH in Stuttgart, Germany, supporting industry and academia in application of advanced modelling and simulation tools for system level simulation and electromagnetic device simulation. From 2011 to 2014 she acted as an interim Professor for microsystems simulation at the University of Freiburg and since 2014 as a lecturer and research group leader at the University of Rostock. Since 2017 Dr. Bechtold is a full professor for mechatronic systems at Jade University of applied sciences in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.

She is author or co-author of over 100 technical publications in the area of modelling and simulation of micro-mechatronic systems, the lead author of the textbook "Fast Simulations of Electro-Thermal MEMS: Efficient Dynamic Compact Models", published by Springer and the main editor of the textbook "System-Level Modeling of MEMS", by Wiley-VHC book series on Advanced Micro and Nanosystems. Her research interests cover applications of advanced mathematical methods of model order reduction and topology optimization to engineering problems and a multi-physics modelling on the device- and system-level.

Additional Pre-Recorded Material for this Course will be available on the Conference Platform

Full-System Simulation of Airborne Acoustic Transducers with MATLAB (by Gabriele Bosetti, Technical University of Munich)
MEMS Simulations with Ansys (by Craig Miller)
Modeling MEMS with COMSOL Multiphysics
System-level Modeling with Coventor MEMS+
Thermal Behaviour Models with Model Reduction inside ANSYS | CADFEM