Versatile tool for characterising long-term stability and reliability of micromechanical structures

Micromechanical devices have a wide range of applications in the near futur e. Therefore it is important to study their long-term behaviour under vario us conditions and environments. We introduce atomic force microscopy as a c omprehensive tool in reliability study of MEMS devices. Mechanical properti es of micromechanical structures can be characterised with high accuracy. R eal-time monitoring of these properties during accelerated ageing tests giv es information about the long-term stability of the structures. The AFM is a versatile instrument for predicting long-term operating of micromachined devices in a convenient way without building complicated experimental set-u ps. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.