Reliability of MEMS: Case study January 30th 2007

Digital Micromirror Device

Begon Martin Ciapala Richard Deaki Zoltan

What is a DMD ?
Matrix of micromirrors 1024 x 768 mirrors for example Size of the mirrors: 16 x 16 um

What is a DMD ?

What is a DMD ?

Applications
Mainly projection systems (Digital Light Processing) Other emerging applications such as 3D metrology, confocal microscopy,digital TV

Hinge fatigue
Fatigue: slow growth of a crack driven by repeated plastic deformation Mirror in normal operating mode switches every 200 microseconds 5 years use with 1000 operating hours a year mirrors switch 90x109 times

Hinge fatigue
First approach: anaylsis using bulk properties of the hinge material showed that fatigue would be a big problem However accelerated tests proved that wrong, samples easily exceeding 100x109 switches showing no fatigue. Explanation: hinge so thin governed by thin film properties!

Hinge memory
Most significant mode of failure Occurs when a mirror operates in the same direction for a long period of time Main factors are the duty cycle and the operating temperature
Duty cycle: percentage of time a mirror is addressed to one side.(95/5) Temperature is the dominant factor for hinge memory lifetime

Hinge memory
Life test under standard condition of 65C and 5/95 duty cycle
Bias voltage has to be increased to annihilate residual tilt angle.

Evolution of the bias voltage through the time reported to the number of non functional micromirros

Micromirrors in the back have a residual tilt angle compared to the ones in the front due to the hinge fatigue

Hinge memory
Cause: Metal creep of the hinge material

Solutions: Selection of a new material with lower degree of metal creep to replace aluminium
Improvemed lifetime by a factor of 5 (1000 hours worst-case not good enough).

Implementation of stepped VDD and a bipolar reset

Allowed mirrors to be efficiently controlled over a wider range of hinge memory. Increased lifetime by a factor of 5 (5000 hours worst-case situation).

Hinge memory
Thermal management of the DMD

Several sources of heat contribute to hinge memory:

Radiant energy from the light source Equipment composing the DLP projector and surrounding the DMD

Solution:

Efficient thermal management design required Heatsinks on the back of most packages to keep the temperature as low as possible DMD operates at temperatures only 7 to 10 C above
the projector ambient

Hinge memory
Efficient heat management added to the previously cited improvements can ensure a lifetime greater than 40000 hours.

Hinge memory mean lifetime estimates over testing time

Stiction
Induced by an excessive adhesive force between the landing tip and its landing site Adhesive forces can be induced by:
Surface contamination Capillary condensation CMOS defects Van der Walls forces

Stiction
Reliability testing can be done to measure the distribution of surface adhesion across the device to determine the number of operating devices under different switching voltages
Solution to stiction

Environment robustness
Based on standard semiconductor tests requirement Capillarity force
Humidity everywhere

UV light exposure Thermal testing Surface contamination

During production process

Size vs Robustness
Small size enable robustness to mechanical shocks
Lowest resonant frequency in KHz Test :1500G and 20G in vibration with no mirror breaking Weaknesses on the package identified and annihilated

Optical properties
Optical properties via glass window
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Summary of DMD reliability

Hinge memory lifetime
>100000 hours at normal operating conditions

Random defects
>650000 hours MTBF (<1500 FIT)

Hinge fatigue lifetime

>3.67 trillion cycle or >250000 hours

Environmentally robust

Conclusion
Misleading apparence
Experience plan must be done to find critical failure modes

Concern to reliability
The reliability of the DMD has been exemplary and should be considered as a reference for development of other MEMS