Microelecromechanical system microphone fabrication including signal processing circuitry on common substrate
AssigneesSony Corporation, Sony Electronics Inc.
InventorsShinichi Araki, Martin Kuhn
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A MEMS microphone is formed on a single substrate that also includes microelectronic circuitry. High-temperature tolerance metals are used to form contacts in a metallization step before performing deep reactive ion etching and back patterning steps to form a MEMS microphone. High-temperature tolerant metals such as titanium, tungsten, chromium, etc. can be used for the contacts. Another approach uses laser annealing in place of deep reactive ion etching so that high-temperature tolerant metals do not need to be used in earlier metallization steps. Different orderings for device, circuit, and metallization series of steps are presented.
Claims22
A method comprising:
- forming at least a portion of a microelectromechanical device on a substrate;
- fabricating at least a portion of a microelectronic circuit on the substrate, wherein fabricating includes a circuit metallization process;
- subsequent to the fabricating, completing formation of the microelectromechanical device by using a device metallization process to fabricate an electrically conductive trace that carries electric signals between the microelectromechanical device and the microelectronic circuit.
A method comprising:
- fabricating at least a portion of a microelectronic circuit on a substrate including a circuit metallization process, wherein the circuit metallization process uses a high temperature metallization material;
- and
- subsequent to the fabricating step, forming a microelectromechanical device including a device metallization process.
A method comprising:
- fabricating a microelectronic circuit on a substrate by using a circuit metallization process;
- subsequent to the fabricating, forming at least a portion of a microelectromechanical device by using an annealing process;
- and
- subsequent to the forming, completing formation of the microelectromechanical device including using a device metallization process.
An apparatus comprising:
- a first area including a microelectromechanical microphone;
- and
- a second area including a microelectronic signal processing integrated circuit;
- the first and second areas being together on a single substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.