AVS 50th International Symposium
    AVS 50th Anniversary Plenary Session Monday Sessions
       Session AP-MoA

Invited Paper AP-MoA9
Massively Parallel Assembly

Monday, November 3, 2003, 4:40 pm, Room 310

Session: Where Next for Nanotechnology?
Presenter: J.N. Randall, Zyvex Corp.
Authors: J.N. Randall, Zyvex Corp.
G.D. Skidmore, Zyvex Corp.
M. Ellis, Zyvex Corp.
A. Geisberger, Zyvex Corp.
K. Tsui, Zyvex Corp.
M. Nolan, Zyvex Corp.
R. Saini, Zyvex Corp.
C. Baur, Zyvex Corp.
K. Bray, Zyvex Corp.
M. Chiew, Zyvex Corp.
R. Folaron, Zyvex Corp.
R. Gupta, Zyvex Corp.
J. Hochberg, Zyvex Corp.
J.F. Liu, Zyvex Corp.
R. Stallcup, Zyvex Corp.
P.G. Yu, Zyvex Corp.
Correspondent: Click to Email
Assembly is generally considered a low-tech, tedious, and expensive undertaking that must be dealt with to manufacture useful systems. Monolithic integration and system-on-a-chip efforts minimize the required assembly, but even the IC industry is economically driven to separate memory and logic chips that are assembled into systems. Where assembly has been automated, the results are expensive primarily because the assembly is serial. This talk will update the ongoing efforts to take assembly manufacturing through the same transition made when Kilby and Noyce revolutionized electronics by going parallel and providing a path for downscaling. We are developing technology for the parallel assembly of Microsystems supported by a NIST-ATP award.@footnote 1@ This technology involves both Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and high precision robotic stages. By using novel MEMS components that we refer to as "Silicon Snap Connectors" and MEMS grippers, we can do automated, parallel, pick-and-place assembly that achieves higher precision assembly than the precision of the robot that did the pick and place. This is made possible through a self-centering mechanism in the connectors and the sub-micron CD control of the MEMS components. Videos of various microscale automated assembly construction projects will be shown. While the assembly being demonstrated so far is being done with MEMS components and is only modestly parallel, the general strategy for parallel assembly is not restricted to MEMS parts and, as the parts are downscaled, the level of parallelism can grow exponentially. The paper will close with some recent developments towards both massively parallel and nanoscale assembly. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@ NIST ATP Award #70NANB1H3021