An Introduction to mems (Micro-electromechanical Systems)

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From a very early vision in the early 1950’s, MEMS has gradually made its way out of 

research laboratories and into everyday products.  In the mid-1990’s, MEMS components 

began appearing in numerous commercial products and applications including accelerometers 

used to control airbag deployment in vehicles, pressure sensors for medical applications, and 

inkjet printer heads.  Today, MEMS devices are also found in projection displays and for 

micropositioners in data storage systems.  However, the greatest potential for MEMS devices 

lies in new applications within telecommunications (optical and wireless), biomedical and 

process control areas. 

MEMS has several distinct advantages as a manufacturing technology.  In the first place, the 

interdisciplinary nature of MEMS technology and its micromachining techniques, as well as 

its diversity of applications has resulted in an unprecedented range of devices and synergies 

across previously unrelated fields (for example biology and microelectronics).  Secondly, 

MEMS with its batch fabrication techniques enables components and devices to be 

manufactured with increased performance and reliability, combined with the obvious 

advantages of reduced physical size, volume, weight and cost.  Thirdly, MEMS provides the 

basis for the manufacture of products that cannot be made by other methods.  These factors 

make MEMS potentially a far more pervasive technology than integrated circuit microchips.  

However, there are many challenges and technological obstacles associated with 

miniaturization that need to be addressed and overcome before MEMS can realize its 

overwhelming potential.