Introduction—MEMS, a Historical Perspective

Abstract

MEMS is a key area in the development of microsystems. MEMS makes it possible to engineer tiny microdevices that can process both electrical and nonelectrical signals to produce sensors and actuators. The first MEMS devices appeared in the early 1960s, soon after the invention of the integrated circuit (IC). A tiny pressure sensor, built by sensing strain on an etched thin-silicon diaphragm is an early example. Extensions of this seminal idea and, in fact, forward progress in the MEMS area came about more slowly than was the case for advances in ICs where processes such as CMOS fuelled unprecedented, rapid growth. Focus on-IC processing continues to provide key ideas for progress in MEMS; for example, polycrystalline silicon films, first developed as gate-materials in CMOS, are now formed into movable beams in countless MEMS structures. MEMS developments and their relationships to IC advances have multiplied over the past half century. The “big data” needed to reference all this work is best addressed using modern data-search procedures.