Intrinsic stress-induced bending as a platform technology for controlled self-assembly of high-Q on-chip RF inductors

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1361-6439/ab16bd

This work reports on the modelling and process technology development for the design and fabrication of vertical, 3D, monolithic RF-MEMS inductors based on self-assembly via intrinsic stresses otherwise referred to as residual or internal stresses in thin films. Stress- induced bending in different cantilever designs were modelled at various film thicknesses using finite element analysis method and bending conditions were optimized. Intrinsic stress-induced bending mechanism is verified by fabrication of bi-layer metallic micro cantilever structures with varying stress conditions which reach bending angles of up to 137 degrees and possibly more upon release. By modulating the loading mode (tensile or compressive) along the beam length, complex out-of-plane wavy cantilevers with multiple upward and/or downward bends were realized. The fabrication and modelling results display large overlap which further demonstrates the applicability of intrinsic stress-induced bending as a controllable technology towards fabrication of out-of-plane 3D micro components. Additionally, as a potential application to RF-MEMS inductors, stress-induced self-assembly of patterned thin film stacks into out-of-plane inductor topologies of varying geometries was investigated. Electromagnetic modelling tools were used to study the effect of bending on inductor performance (primarily the Q factor and self-resonance frequency-f(SR)), and results were evaluated by comparison to planar inductors of the same number of turns and dimensions, which revealed Q factor and f(S)(R) improvement of more than 100% upon bending away from substrate surface.