Silicon Microengineering

Microengineering technology is beginning to emerge from the laboratory into the commercial world, and promises improvments in the cost, size and performance of devices used for sensing and measuring physical and chemical parameters. Future applications could have far reaching effects in diverse fields where miniaturization is an advantage, including applications in robotics, medicine, communications, electronic devices and many others. Although it grew from integrated circuit fabrication technology, microengineering requires input from several disciplines, among them physics, chemistry, mechanics and electronics. This book provides sufficient detail to satisfy all of the potential users and gives all the necessary information to exploit this technology. Readers should find this volume useful both as a tutorial introduction to the field and as a long-term reference. This book should be of interest to engineers, scientists and graduate students entering microengineering.