TABLE OF CONTENTS Michael Gaitan
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
These days it's hard to imagine life without the benefits of integration, computers, and the internet. Even simple tasks such as shopping for food have gone "high tech" with computerized checkout, laser scanners, digital scales, and electronic transactions. And during your drive home, you might use the onboard global positioning navigation system mounted in your dashboard and make a call using your mobile phone while feeling secure with your automatically controlled airbags in case of an accident. Such capabilities are what integrative systems are about; linking the functionality of information processing (computation) with gathering information (sensing) and acting on decisions (actuating).
Today's new integrative systems are referred to as MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) or MicroSystems Technology (MST). Generally speaking, MEMS and MST technologies are made up of systems of sensors and actuators that are monolithically integrated with digital and analog circuits on an integrated circuit (IC) chip. The term MEMS refers to a class of microsystems that are electrostatically actuated mechanical components. In contrast, MST is more inclusive and includes thermal, fluidic, chemical, biological, and optical components.
Two examples of MEMS devices, one a sensor and the other an actuator, are shown in Figure 15.1. The first example, shown in Figure 15. 1a, is the Analog Devices accelerometer. This sensor is used to detect a sudden change in acceleration to control the release...
