Advances in LIGA-Based Post-Mold Fabrication

Abstract

The establishment of a process to allow planarization of deep x-ray lithography based microfabncated metal components via diamond lapping has enabled examination of three additional microfabrication issues. The areas of improvement that are discussed include materials, microassembly and packaging, and multilevel fabrication. New materials work has centered on magnetic materials including precision micromagnets and surface treatments of electrodeposited materials. Assembly and packaging has been aided by deep silicon etch processing and the use of conventional precision milling equipment combined with press-tit assembly. Diffhsion bonding is shown to be a particularly important approach to achieving multilevel metal mechanisms and furthermore shows promise for achieving batch assembled and packaged high aspect-ratio metal micromechanics