Silicon as a plastic material

Plastic reshaping is applied to different Si microelements. Because of the brittleness of Si at room temperature the process is performed at 900 degre es C. Microelements suitable for plastic reshaping are beams fastened at on e side, stripes fastened at two sides, membranes and bars. Microelements we re integrated into one wafer and fabricated by wet anisotropic etching. Aft er this, in a testing machine equipped with a furnace, the reshaping proces s was carried out in different ways: (1) loading of elements in single chip s with a silica rod or special tools and (2) simultaneous loading of all el ements in the wafer (batch process) with special wafer tools. The tools (a stamp and a rest) were also fabricated by wet anisotropic etching. Using th ese tools very exact deformed shapes can be made, but the bend is limited b y the depth/height of the tools. Very large bends can be realized by using the silica rod, but the exact positioning is difficult. Planned application s are a micro mirror with a slope of 45 degrees to the wafer plane, a clip- system and a guide through several wafers.