Preface

Chapter 9 **Nanotechnology for Packaging 207**

Mansfeld

**VI** Contents

Artin Petrossians, John J. Whalen III, James D. Weiland and Florian

Micro-electro-mechanical systems, or MEMS, are becoming a vital technology for our society. MEMS technology is increasingly penetrating into our lives and improving our quality of life, similar to what we experienced in the microelectronics revolution. Commercial opportunities for MEMS are rapidly growing in broad application areas, including biomedical, telecommuni‐ cation, security, entertainment, aerospace, and more in both the consumer and industrial sec‐ tors on a global scale. In parallel to this trend, advances in nanotechnology and nanomaterials have been catalyzing the rise of nano-electro-mechanical systems, or NEMS, being founded on MEMS as their platform technology.

Innovations and growth of these extremely miniaturized systems were brought by establishing a variety of silicon and thin-film micro/nanomachining techniques. Manufacturing technology for silicon-based integrated circuits has been exploited to enable these techniques. We have wit‐ nessed that this methodology is highly effective in realizing MEMS for many applications, e.g., inertial sensing and optical applications, but it also has various constraints. To diversify their contribution while pushing the limits further, there are clear needs for new micro/nano fabrica‐ tion and packaging processes to be able to incorporate a broader range of materials. This ap‐ proach is a key to bringing these systems into real products in critical areas that challenge our society, such as medical and energy applications.

This book focuses on the latest development of devices and fabrication processes in MEMS and NEMS. It consists of nine chapters contributed by leading researchers around the world, re‐ viewing state-of-the-art technologies available to date and their future trends. In the chapters, practical issues and advances are discussed for flexible microdevices, bioMEMS, intelligent im‐ plants, optical MEMS, nanomachined structures and NEMS, and others. Most of the chapters also focus on novel fabrication/packaging processes, including silicon bulk micromachining, la‐ ser micromachining, nanolithography, and packaging for implantable microelectronics enabled by nanomaterials.

The book offers new knowledge and insight into design, fabrication, and packaging, as well as solutions in these aspects for targeted applications of these miniaturized devices and systems. It is aimed to support scientists, engineers and academic trainees who are engaged in research of relevant devices and processes.

I would like to thank all the authors who contributed to this book, and a special thanks goes to the InTech team for the dedicated work they provided for this publication.

> **Kenichi Takahata** Canada Research Chair University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada
