Hands-on MEMS

  • Chin, Ken (PI)
  • Modi, Vijay V. (CoPI)
  • Farmer, Kenneth R. (CoPI)
  • Frechette, Luc L. (CoPI)
  • Miller, Floyd F. (CoPI)

Project: Research project

Project Details

Description

Educational institutions, particularly those without access to clean room facilities, find

it difficult to offer a course that exposes students to the concepts of MEMS micro fabrication and MEMS-based devices. This project is developing educational materials that provide students with MEMS devices for characterization and study, and instructors with easy-to-use course and training materials. This full-scale development is based on a prototype course offered during Spring 2001 and 2002 at NJIT and Columbia

University. Specifically, the product is a laboratory kit for hands-on MEMS exploration that includes 1) a polished set of experiments built upon the existing prototype activities, 2) a set of MEMS devices for testing, and wafers to illustrate key process steps, 3) easy- to-use device packaging or mounting hardware, 4) a supplemental process and device illustration/simulation software tool to further illustrate design and processing, 5) teacher training and lecture materials and exemplary reports, and 6) recommended equipment and software platforms for each device type. Including actual MEMS devices in the kit is perhaps the most novel aspect of the proposed program, but necessary if hands-on MEMS is to be accessible to a wide audience. The product is being beta tested at six partner universities, including small schools with small programs, to help insure appropriateness for national dissemination. Furthermore, a commercialization partner has been identified and has agreed to help develop a product that can be distributed nationally through their network of major dealers.

StatusFinished
Effective start/end date2/1/031/31/07

Funding

  • National Science Foundation: $302,317.00

Fingerprint

Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.