Publications

Adaptive Servo Schemes using Micromachined Accelerometers for Increased Disturbance Rejection for Magnetic Hard Disk Drives

Satinderpall Pannu
Roberto Horowitz
Albert P. Pisano
Roger T. Howe
1998

Hard disk drive track widths of 1 um are needed to achieve 10 GBit/in^2. Since it is desired to keep the tracking error below an eigth of the track width, the magnetic hard disk drive servo must maintain the tracking error below 0.12um at the above track width. In a low disturbance environment, some hard disk drive manufactures believe that they can achieve this tracking error accuracy without the addition of new sensors and/or actuators. However, conventional hard disk drives are used in a wide variety of environemtns which subject them to a significant amount of shock and vibrations....

Permeable Polysilicon Etch-Access Windows for Microshell Fabrication

Kyle Lebouitz
1996

The use of permeable polysilicon etch access windows for the removal of underlying sacrificial PSG has been implemented in order to fabricate low-pressure, hermetically sealed micro encapsulation shells. Permeable polysilicon provides a dense array of etchant ...

MEMS Microshells for Microneedles, Microscale Fluid Visualization, and Vacuum Packaging of Microdevices

Kyle Lebouitz
Albert P. Pisano
Roger T. Howe
Dorian Liepmann
1998
Three MEMS microshell devices are developed in this work. The first device is an isotropically etched microhypodermic injection needle (microneedle); the second device is a transparent, silicon nitride flow tube for fluid flow visualization; and the third...

Planar Microfluidics: Toward Large Scale Integration of Channels, Pumps, Valves, and Fluid Mixers in Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS)

John Evans
Dorian Liepmann
Albert P. Pisano
Roger T. Howe
1999
A cost effective, manufacturable technology for the large scale integration of microfluidic processing components would find wide application in drug delivery, drug development, micro-biology, genetics, printing and associated fields. This dissertation outlines a design paradigm...

An SOI Based, Fully Integrated Fabrication Process for High-Aspect-Ratio Microelectromechanical Systems

Timothy Brosnihan
Albert P. Pisano
Roger T. Howe
David Dornfeld
1998

A low-cost, SOI-based, fully integrated fabrication process for high-aspect-ratio MEMS has been developed and demonstrated. The fully integrated SOI MEMS process uses only two MEMS masking steps plus a standard foundry CMOS process to form sensors and actuators with on-chip electronics. The test vehicle for this process was a 50um tall, in-plane, linear accelerometer with sigma-delta force balanced, capacitive sense electronics. The accelerometer had 25uG/Hz noise floor and +/- 1.75 G full range.

Using a modular process approach, fully integrated MEMS devices...

MicroElectroMechanical Devices and Fabrication Technologies for Radio-Frequency Analog Signal Processing

Darrin Young
Bernhard E. Boser
Robert G. Meyer
Albert P. Pisano
1999
The proliferation of wireless services creates a pressing need for compact and low cost RF transceivers. Modern sub-micron technologies provide the active components needed for miniaturization but fail to deliver high quality passives needed in ...

Microrelay Design, Performance, and Systems

Ezekiel Kruglick
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Roger T. Howe
Richard M. White
Dorian Liepmann
1999

Surface micromachined four terminal relays have been fabricated, tested, and packaged. The relays are implemented in a foundry process with minimal post-processing. They show on resistances as low as 20mW, current carrying capacities as highas 0.48 Amps, and lifetimes in the millions of cycles while hot switching 80mA. These devices are thus competitive with commercial macroscopic relays.

Achieving these high performance and reliability levels required exploring the physics and tribology of microrelays and using novel physical experiments to outline a...

Microfabricated Microneedles for Minimally Invasive Drug Delivery, Sampling and Analysis

Jeffrey Zahn
Dorian Liepmann
Albert P. Pisano
Frank Tendick
2001

Utilizing current Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technologies, different microneedle designs have been fabricated and integrated with various microfabricated microfluidic devices. microneedle technology promises to revolutionize health care by allowing the precise injection of therapeutic agents to prescribed locations below the skin. In addition, microneedles can be used for sample collection for biological analysis, delivery of cell or cellular extract based vaccines, and sample handling providing interconnection between the microscopic and macroscopic world. Microneedsl are...

Micro-Fabricated Shells for Mechanical and Fluidic Interconnects

Phillip Stupar
Albert P. Pisano
Liwei Lin
Luke P. Lee
2001
Three micro-fabricated shell processes are developed in this work, each tailored to a specific application. The first is a two-wafer molding process used to fabricate polysilicon shell suspensions that are very light and stiff. The second is a single crystal silicon...

Microfabricated Parylene Microneedles and Pneumatic/Hydraulic Actuators for Use in Interventional, Transvascular Drug Delivery

Kirk Seward
Albert P. Pisano
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Liwei Lin
2001
A method for performing interventional surgery has been developed. Transvascular delivery of therapeutic and diagnostic agents into perivascular space is desirable for various cardiovascular treatments and applications. The dosing of perivascular space requires the perpendicular actuation of a microneedle to slide through the layers...