A novel drie fabrication process development for SOI-based MEMS devices

This paper reports a novel deep reactive ion etching (RIE) fabrication process for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) based Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) devices. The notching effect and stiction problems that widely exist in SOI based micro fabrication process are solved regardless of the feature sizes by introducing space oxide thin film deposition combined with lateral oxide etching. Dry chemical release is also realized by employing the notching effect. Highspeed optical switch is fabricated by using this new process.