ULVAC Inc.’s MEMS Foundry Services
Yoko Yamakawa, Managing Director,
Engineering Planning Officer,
Tsukuba Metamaterial Laboratory Director

As a rule, for devices, we ask the customer to provide
the design, while the foundry faithfully fulfills production.
The basic philosophy of ULVAC’s foundry service is toenable the customer to carry out the design freely without
any preconceptions even when new processes arerequired, or when it is difficult to judge which material touse, then to pass the production baton to ULVAC
whereupon we manufacture the product to specificationand hand it back. Naturally, we work to ensure that there
are pricing benefits too.

1. ULVAC’s approach to MEMSULVAC has developed equipment for MEMS and at
the same time we have been developing the associatedprocesses. For example, we are offering equipmentthat overcomes issues that were considered difficult in
the past such as deposition and etching of functional
materials like high-permittivity film and magnetic film,
deep etching quartz and Si, or dry etching etchresistant materials with low vapor pressure and so on.
For example, equipment such as the SME-200 sputter
machine for high-permittivity film and SAW device
electrode formation; the CME-200 CVD machine forsilicon oxide and nitride films; the NLD-6000 which
demonstrates its power in deep etching quartz; andthe NLD-Si that can deep-etch Si are evaluated highlyin the field of MEMS.
In addition, besides giving polymer film itself thefunctionality of water repellency, hydrophilicity,biocompatibility, and antimicrobial properties,ULVAC’s vapor deposition polymerization method canform a uniform polymer film even in the deep parts ofminute structures. These properties are drawing
attention to the method as a technology perfectly
suited to MEMS. In parallel with the development of
this machinery, ULVAC is aggressively pursuingchallenging new development in the bio, finemechatronics and fine chemicals sectors.
The MEMS foundry service, started in November
2003, is positioned to leverage these equipment andprocess developments for production of MEMS
devices. In other words, as well as providing services
incorporating ULVAC’s technologies into processing asa foundry managed by an equipment manufacturer, weare leveraging our technology and know-how gained
through development of equipment and processes. In
this way we are expanding our mission by providing
rapid service to meet our customers’ requirements for
new processes and equipment.

3. Introducing ULVAC’s MEMS manufacturing
Here we provide an example of ULVAC’s in-house
device manufacturing. When we developed our MO-CVD
equipment for LEDs, we produced a prototype blue LED
to evaluate the equipment characteristics. Figure 1 shows
an emission test ( = 440.9 nm). The quantum well of theluminescent layer is formed of InGaN, sandwiched
between p-AlGaN and n-GaN to form an LED.
Figure 2 shows an example of Si deep etching. This isa processing example of ULVAC’s proprietary NLD-Si
method. It achieves Si etching with a width of 0.2 µm, adepth of 6.5 µm, and an aspect ratio of 30 or more.

Figure 1. Blue LED

Figure 2. High aspect etching using
the NLD-Si method

4. Future efforts
As we saw above, ULVAC’s MEMS foundry aims toprovide a wide range of processing technologies in atimely manner. We have a comprehensive range of lines,
from deposition and etching to bonding and dicing, andwe are currently augmenting our facilities. At our current
scale of operations, we are accepting orders for small-lot
production suited to R&D level manufacturing. For thefuture, we plan to expand into larger-scale processing.
Besides integrated production for our own company, theULVAC MEMS foundry also welcomes subcontracting
orders in our area of specialization. In terms of quantity,
we accept orders starting from one wafer. Please addressenquiries to the Micromachine Center or through theULVAC website.
http://www.ulvac.co.jp

2. The features of ULVAC’s MEMS foundry
services
Since we started the foundry, the response hasexceeded our expectations. Besides production of MEMS
devices, requests have come in for single processes likedeposition of single films or etching. We are making great
efforts to upgrade our equipment and improve ourprocesses in response to difficult orders, and we believethat as the foundry of an equipment manufacturer, wehave a distinctive offering.

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