A major societal challenge for the decades to come will be the delivery of effective
medical services while at the same time curbing the growing cost of healthcare.
It is expected that new concepts-particularly electronically assisted healthcare will
provide an answer. This will include new devices, new medical services as well
as networking. On the device side, impressive innovation has been made possible
by micro- and nanoelectronics or CMOS Integrated Circuits. Even higher accuracy
and smaller form factor combined with reduced cost and increased convenience
of use are enabled by incorporation of CMOS IC design in the realization of biomedical
systems. The compact hearing aid devices and current pacemakers are
good examples of how CMOS ICs bring about these new functionalities and services
in the medical field. Apart from these existing applications, many researchers
are trying to develop new bio-medical solutions such as Artificial Retina, Deep
Brain Stimulation, and Wearable Healthcare Systems. These are possible by combining
the recent advances of bio-medical technology with low power CMOS IC
technology.
The rapid growth in mobile communications has led to an increasing demand for wide-
band high data rate communications services. In recent years, Distributed Antenna
Systems (DAS) has emerged as a promising candidate for future (beyond 3G or 4G)
mobile communications, as illustrated by projects such as FRAMES and FuTURE. The
architecture of DAS inherits and develops the concepts of pico- or micro-cell systems,
where multiple distributed antennas or access points (AP) are connected to and con-
trolled by a central unit.
The need to develop reliable microelectronic devices capable of operating at high
speeds with complex functionality requires a better understanding of the factors
that govern the thermal performance of electronics. With an increased demand
on system reliability and performance combined with miniaturization of the
devices, thermal consideration has become a crucial factor in the design of elec-
tronic packages, from chip to system levels.
Applications of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microfabrica-
tion have spread to different fields of engineering and science in recent years.
Perhaps the most exciting development in the application of MEMS technol-
ogy has occurred in the biological and biomedical areas. In addition to key
fluidic components, such as microvalves, pumps, and all kinds of novel
sensors that can be used for biological and biomedical analysis and mea-
surements, many other types of so-called micro total analysis systems (TAS)
have been developed.
The mature CMOS fabrication processes are available
in many IC foundries. It is cost-effective to leverage the
existing CMOS fabrication technologies to implement
MEMS devices. On the other hand, the MEMS devices
could also add values to the IC industry as the Moore’s law
reaching its limit. The CMOS MEMS could play a key role
to bridge the gap between the CMOS and MEMS
technologies. The CMOS MEMS also offers the advantage
of monolithic integration of ICs and micro mechanical
components.
For more than three decades, Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) have
steadily transitioned out of research labs and into production forming a more than $10 billion
market [1]. MEMS devices such as accelerometers, pressure sensors and microphones, to name
a few, have seen immense utilization, particularly in the consumer electronics market, because
of their compact sizes and minute power consumptions. In addition, these devices benefit from
batch fabrication, which has enabled year-over-year reductions in cost [2]. In recent years,
micro-electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are miniature systems composed
ofintegratedelectricalandmechanicalpartstosenseand/orcontrolthingsonaμmscale.
The concept of MEMS is attributed to Richard Feynman’s famous talk on December
29th, 1959 [2,3]. Dr. Feynman foresaw many aspects of future MEMS development
with his insight in microphysics. In particular, material properties in the μm scale are
differentfrombulkpropertiesandthescalingdownofintegratedcircuits(IC)fabrication
technology has been a major driving force of MEMS development.
