The joint lecture about an introduction to MEMS, which was developed by Dr. Osamu Tabata at Kyoto University and Dr. Man Wong at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has been also held in this year as a part of an educational program entitled “Micro Electro Mechanical System Creation” for the master course students. This joint lecture started from 2007, and this year marks the 3rd anniversary. As part of lecture, 5 teams competed in the MEMS design contest, each comprising one student from HKUST and one student from Kyoto University. The contest using MEMS devices fabricated in the university’s clean room was held at the end of the program. The objective of this semester was the “Tug-of-Wars of the designed Heatuators”. Heatuator is a kind of actuators using thermal expansion by generated Joule’s heating when current is applied to Si microstructure. The students designed and analyzed MEMS devices using “Coventor” software under the following regulations. Dimensions
- Die size no more than 0.5 mm x 0.3 mm
- Anchor size no less than 0.1 mm x 0.1 mm
Mechanism
- Electro-thermal compliant linear in-plane actuator
Goal of the Tug-of-War
- Pull an opponent device by a minimum of 8 um and hold for at least 1 min.
- Do not overheat the device!
- Maximum voltage from power supply is 100V.
The result of contest is now broadcast on YouTube all over the world, including Japan and Hong Kong!
