Automated assembly of hingeless 90° out-of-plane microstructures

A novel design for hingeless out-of-plane microstructures is presented. These structures can be assembled to 90° by a single-point actuation, which can be provided by, for example, a microelectronics wirebonder or a microprober station. Both wirebonders and microprober stations are commonly available to microfabrication facilities, and therefore the assembly method described here introduces a practical and economical approach to the creation of out-of-plane structures. The microstructure designs can be used in many types of microfabrication processes, and in particular have been fabricated using both PolyMUMPs and an SU-8 technology developed at Simon Fraser University. In addition to the fabricated devices, we will present the results of finite element analysis (FEA). Also reported here are tests for positional repeatability and reliability.