Large slivers (approximately more » 1 micron in length) of debris observed at the low humidity level were also amorphous oxidized silicon. The wear debris has been identified as amorphous oxidized silicon. The dominant failure mechanism has been identified as wear. For the higher humidity levels, the formation of surface hydroxides may act as a lubricant. As the humidity decreases, the wear debris generated increases. We show that the volume of wear debris generated is a function of the humidity in an air environment. We demonstrate that very low humidity can lead to very high wear without a significant change in reliability. Humidity is shown to be a strong factor in the wear of rubbing surfaces in polysilicon micromachines. Reliability design rules for future MEMS devices are =, consistent with monolayer-coated polysilicon MEMS. The major failure mechanism for operating MEMS was wear of the polysilicon rubbing surfaces. The root causes of failure for operating and non-operating MEMS are discussed. A predictive reliability model for wear of rubbing surfaces in microengines was developed. Many experiments were performed to investigate failure modes and specifically those in different environments (humidity, temperature, shock, vibration, and storage). In addition, reliability test structures have been designed and characterized. Development of a testing infrastructure was a crucial step to perform reliability experiments on MEMS devices and will be reported here. Do we want to use this new technology in critical applications such as nuclear weapons? This question drove us to understand the reliability and failure mechanisms of silicon surface-micromachined MEMS. We can now conceive of micro-gyros, micro-surety systems, and micro-navigators that are extremely small and inexpensive. The burgeoning new technology of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) shows great promise in the weapons arena.
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