TABLE OF CONTENTS MOEMS, or optical-MEMS, has most of the same requirements as nonoptical MEMS in terms of connectivity, freespace, no contamination, and atmosphere control, but an optical pathway must be added. Most also believe that optical systems require a higher level of hermeticity since the optical path must remain clear and optical parts and devices can be moisture sensitive. The Texas Instruments DLP micromirror light controller can be viewed as the reference standard by which to judge other MOEMS packages. Today, the DLP uses a fully hermetic ceramic cavity package, though much work has been done on polymer materials. There may not be a better option for this demanding product although early products used nonhermetic packages, since the glass was sealed with thermal epoxy and then UV-cured adhesive. One of the special requirements, and one that is very demanding, is the ability to tolerate highintensity lighting that has a significant infrared component. Projector light sources, especially for large cinemas, cause significant heating that may exceed the limits of the best plastic candidates. But there are many other MOEMS devices that have less severe requirements.
The earliest MOEMS commercial product appears to be the Airline Ticket Printer from Texas Instruments launched around 1992. The optical print head for the airline ticket boarding (ATB) used a MOEMS device with 840 mirrors (2 420) in a rectangular chip (0.64 in 0.18 in). The original package had a glass window that was thermally...
