Characterization of anti-stiction coatings for MEMS applications

Anti-stiction coatings are frequently deposited onto MEMS surfaces to prevent moving structures from getting stuck. Therefore, in order to resolve stiction issues during MEMS production, it is important to characterize the anti-stiction coating effectively. Time-of-Flight SIMS was found to be very useful to this purpose, where the C
₂
F
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signal from the perfluoro-decyltrichlorosilane (FDTS) anti-stiction coating was useful in studying the thermal degradation of the material. This was successfully employed in the failure analysis of stiction issues involving MEMS motion sensors.