Batch processing for micromachined devices

Micromachined device technology has emerged during the last three decades. At first it was mainly a technological spin-off from microelectronics/integrated circuit technology. Sensor applications gave the main market pull, batch processing the key to high quality at low cost and silicon micromachining established itself as a unique process technology with distinctive features. Today, these devices have matured into a separate industry sector with their own market and manufacturing infrastructure, also with micromachining of other materials than silicon. They are used in microelectronic systems with widespread applications, ranging from low-cost, high-volume automotive applications to high-cost, low-volume instrumentation applications. The micromachined devices have during these years shown a much slower learning curve than microelectronics in general, making them bottlenecks for performance and cost improvements in their systems. The herald of the rapid development of integrated circuit technology - batch processing - is one of the important keys to ease these bottlenecks. The most important batch processes for micromachined devices are highlighted, and recommendations for future batch processing developments for micromachined devices are given.