Surface-mountable capacitive tactile sensors with flipped CMOS-diaphragm on a flexible and stretchable bus line

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Sho Asano^a ; ^{asano@mems.mech.tohoku.ac.jp" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author}Author Vitae ; Masanori Muroyama^aAuthor Vitae ; Travis Bartley^aAuthor Vitae ; Takahiro Kojima^aAuthor Vitae ; Takahiro Nakayama^bAuthor Vitae ; Ui Yamaguchi^bAuthor Vitae ; Hitoshi Yamada^bAuthor Vitae ; Yutaka Nonomura^cAuthor Vitae ; Yoshiyuki Hata^cAuthor Vitae ; Hirofumi Funabashi^cAuthor Vitae ; Shuji Tanaka^aAuthor Vitae
• 关键词：Tactile sensor ; MEMS-CMOS integration ; Wafer-level packaging ; Au&ndash ; Au bonding ; Surface mounting ; Stretchable interconnection ; Human-inspired system ; Parameter configuration
• 刊名：Sensors and Actuators A: Physical
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：1 April 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：240
• 期：Complete
• 页码：167-176
• 全文大小：4563 K

文摘

This paper describes a MEMS-CMOS integrated tactile sensor for surface mounting on a flexible and stretchable bus line. The sensor is featured by the following configurations; (1) A sensing diaphragm is formed on a CMOS substrate by backside etching, and (2) the CMOS substrate is flip-bonded to a special low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) substrate with Au through vias. The flipped CMOS substrate and the LTCC substrate were electrically and mechanically connected using Au–Au bonding, which also formed differential capacitive gaps. The structure and fabrication process are simple compared with the existing surface-mountable MEMS-CMOS integrated sensors. Bendable and stretchable bus lines were fabricated by etching metal, which is deposited on a polyimide substrate and the outer shape is then determined by laser cutting. The bus line with a silicone protection coat is capable of stretching up to 50%. The sensors covered with silicone worked even under 10% stretching of the bus line. The tactile sensors mounted on the surface of the flexible bus line were characterized in terms of force sensitivity. Also, smart functions such as threshold and adaptation operations and the configuration of sensor parameters were demonstrated.