Advanced low temperature bonding technologies

The different fields and especially its various applications for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) prevent the use of uniform packaging techniques for all types of /spl mu/-device. Several bonding techniques performed at wafer-scale, with the advantage of protecting the device against particles, contaminations or even damage during the sawing and dicing process are used right now. Most of these techniques are performed at high temperatures during the bond, wet cleaning process steps - totally inapplicable for /spl mu/-moving parts - or insufficient hermeticity in the final package. Bonding techniques based on dry plasma activation and adhesive wafer-level bonding of MEMS are therefore a very interesting alternative to the common techniques. Main advantages of these two techniques are: temperature sensitive devices or heterogeneous materials with different CTE can be bonded together on wafer scale; there is no wet activation or cleaning processes involved.