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Substrate transfer technology for SOI and non-SOI single-crystalline silicon wafers was demonstrated allowing for high-performance low-power RF applications. 3D deformable electronics could be realized by vertically thinning and laterally partitioning of the silicon substrate on sub-millimeter scale. By varying the partition dimensions and the geometry of connecting bridges, the level of acceptable deformations can be controlled. The targeted applications of this technology are wireless ID tags and sensor networks. The mechanical properties such as crack, interfacial delamination are critical to reach the flexible substrate. In this contribution, results of our work on mechanical reliability issues of poly- and single crystalline silicon on ultra-thin polyimide substrates are presented. To improve reliability, square and hexagonal segmentation with different size is applied to the silicon layer before it is transferred onto an ultra-thin polyimide substrate using wafer-to-wafer substrate transfer technique based on a temporary glass carrier. Generation of cracks within the silicon and dielectric layers is then studied under controlled bending and tensile loads. The formation of cracks is studied experimentally using specially for this purpose designed bending and tensile tools. Ultra-thin interfacial delamination are also focused in this work by experimental and FE simulation method. A new test setup is designed for mixed mode bending testing which has capacity to observation specimen and recording the crack length and crack opening by microscope. The critical energy release depended on mixed angle can be reach by combination experimental data with FEM simulation.

A new encapsulation technique to seal a vacuum-tube microcavity hermetically at low pressures, based on aluminium evaporation, is presented and its performance is compared to conventional low-pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) reactive sealing. The microdiode consists of an in-cavity recessed single-crystalline silicon cathode tip above which a polycrystalline silicon anode is suspended on a silicon-rich nitride layer. The diode cavity is cleared from the sacrificial oxide in buffered HF through the horizontal etch-access channels between the polysilicon anode and the silicon-rich nitride isolation layer. Vacuum sealing of the cavity using LPCVD polycrystalline silicon results in polysilicon deposits ( 50 nm) inside the cavity, and thus in a non-acceptable degradation of the cathode-tip curvature. When sealing is performed using aluminium evaporation, no deposits inside the cavity are observed and pressures below 10 Pa can be expected. Applications of the technique presented are not restricted to micro vacuum diodes, but also include various type of hermetically sealed micromechanical structures, where deposits inside the sealed cavity are undesirable.

A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the quantification of encainide (4-methoxy-2‘-[2-(1-methyl-2-piperidinyl)-ethyl]benzanilide hydrochloride) in plasma and urine has been developed and validated. Encainide and two metabolites, the O-demethyl (ODE) and 3-methoxy-O-demethyl (MODE) congeners of the drug, can be quantified simultaneously in plasma and urine by this procedure. The compounds are extracted from buffered plasma (pH 8.5) using N-butyl chloride containing 5 (vol/vol) isopropyl alcohol. The compounds are then separated on a silica column using ethanol:water:methanesulfonic acid, 500/60/0.2 (vol/vol/vol) as the mobile phase and quantified by measuring their UV absorbance at 254 nm. The lower limit of detection for the analytes was 5 ng/ml in plasma and 25 ng/ml in urine. The method was linear from 5 to 5,000 ng/ml for plasma and 25 to 5,000 ng/ml for urine. The intra-assay precision of the method for encainide, ODE, and MODE in plasma and urine ranged from 2 to 8 RSD depending upon concentration. The inter-assay precision of the method was <6 for the three analytes per ml of plasma and urine. Absolute recovery of the analytes from plasma ranged from 82 to 92, while recoveries from urine ranged from 83 to 99. The analytes were shown to be stable in frozen plasma and urine for up to 52 weeks.

This paper presents the optimization of the fabrication process for bipolar-compatible epipoly for micromachining applications. The use of an epitaxial reactor to grow polysilicon enables the growth of monocrystalline silicon (for bipolar electronics) and polysilicon on top of oxkle (for MEMS) in a single deposition step. However, after bipolar processing the early structures showed compressive strain in the epipoly layer, which then required careful MEMS design. The cause of this compressive strain is shown to be the oxidation steps in the bipolar process. The occurrence of this strain can be explained by the presence of oxygen in the epipoly. An alternative processing technique, where the epipoly is doped using implantation and shielded from oxidation by a nitride layer during further bipolar processing, yields epipoly layers without compressive strain. The full thermal budget of the bipolar process is used to diffuse and activate the implanted epipoly dopant. Functional thermal and electrostatic sensor and actuator structures have been fabricated to demonstrate the feasibility of this process

The relative plasma, myocardial, and skeletal muscle concentrations as well as activities of racemic and d-sotalol were assessed in both anesthetized and conscious dogs. In acute anesthetized experiments, the agents were infused i.v. over a 15-min interval at doses of 1 and 4 mg/kg. Arterial blood samples and punch biopsy specimens from the left ventricular myocardium and skeletal muscle (gastrocnemius) were taken at the completion of each infusion and at periodic intervals for the ensuing 3 h. The drugs were also administered over a 2-week dosing interval to conscious dogs at a dose of 5 mg/kg given twice daily. ECG alterations and venous blood samples were withdrawn on the 1st, 3rd, 7th, and 14th day of drug administration. Myocardial and skeletal muscle samples were taken at killing on day 14. In anesthetized dogs, both forms of sotalol decreased heart rate, lowered arterial pressure, prolonged ventricular refractoriness, and caused measurable increases in the PR, QT, and QTcintervals in the absence of any effect on QRS duration.

Our progress in developing technology modules for deformable single-crystalline-silicon electronics is presented in this contribution. Additional deformability/reliability is accomplished by modifications of the previously reported ultra-thin and flexible CIRCONFLEX technology (1). The flexibility is added in the last steps of the process flow using a combination of lateral segmentation and flexible metal interconnects. The post-processing nature of the added mechanical flexibility is thought to allow sensors and electronics to be built with proven technologies before they are rendered flexible. The additional deformability/reliability is achieved by lateral segmentation of silicon/dielectric layers and connecting these using flexible electrical interconnect. In the current study, segment thickness (silicon/SiO2) of ~1 μm, segment size between 150 and 450 μm, spacing of 20-200 μm and serpentine-shaped aluminum interconnect transferred onto 8- 10 μm thick polyimide film are characterized by tensile stretching to find out the reliability limits. Compared to our previous reports (2, 3), next to the processing issues also new electrical integrity results obtained from passive electrical test structures implemented on fully segmented polymer-embedded silicon islands are presented.