Worldwide R&DIntelligent Formative Engineering, Department of Intelligent Mechanical
Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kagawa University
Gen Hashiguchi, Associate Professor
E-mail: hasiguti@eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp
1. Introduction
The Faculty of Engineering at Kagawa University isrelatively new in that the first class enrolled in April 1998.
Intelligent Formative Engineering, one research group in theDepartment of Intelligent Mechanical Systems Engineering, has
focused on semiconductor microfabrication technology since its
inauguration. We were granted permission to share the clean
room in the Future Research Center On To The New MillenniumKAGAWA (FROM Kagawa) in October 2000. Since then, wehave been intensively studying micromachine technology.
Professors Yutaka Mihara, Fumikazu Ohira, and I have beenworking together to raise funds and operate the clean room.
This year we intensified our research activities by adding
Research Associate Maho Hosogi to our group.

2. Research Facilities
We received permission to use the facilities at FROM
Kagawa, including a Class 1000 clean room having an area of
70m2 (see Fig. 1), two laboratories, a conference room, and asitting room, for a total floor area in the five rooms of 300m2.
The clean room is equipped with photolithographic devices suchas a two-sided mask aligner, draft chambers for treating organic
and acid chemical wastes, an RF sputterer, a reactive ion etcher(RIE), and a STS-manufactured inductively-coupled plasma RIE,
which we persuaded Kagawa Prefecture to install. Additional
measuring equipment includes a measuring microscope andsurface profiler. The electric furnace room is equipped with anoxidation furnace having an external combustion tube , asintering furnace, an annealing furnace, and an SiN low-pressurechemical vapor deposition furnace. Except for an ion implanter ,Fig. 1 Class 1000 Clean Room (70m 2)

the facilities include all basic equipment required for research onsemiconductor microfabrication.

3. Research Themes
The research group of Intelligent Formative Engineering
conducts numerous studies with a focus on the following topics.
• Micromolding• MEMS-based optical communications• Wearable sensors• Microdevices for DNA analysis• Probes for nanofabrication
In addition to conventional electroplating technology,
micromolding research covers processing technology using
superplastic titanium. MEMS-based optical communication
research is the study of phase variable filters and opticalswitches that can maintain communication lines when electric
power is interrupted. Under the theme of wearable sensors, astethoscopic sensor is being developed for detecting vital signs.
Recently we have also turned our attention tobionanotechnology, working with Tokushima University and theUniversity of Tokyo to establish microdisection for the specificisolation of DNA molecules from solution using a DNA nano pin
set (see Fig. 2) and to fabricate prototypes of multi-nanoprobes
for AFM field processing.

4. Conclusion
Owing to use of the clean room over the past three years, wehave learned basic micromachining processes and production
techniques for MEMS devices. We are committed to moving
forward with our research in order to prove our competence as a
MEMS research laboratory.

Fig. 2 DNA nano pin set, SEM photo ofmicrodisectioned DNA cells (-DNA)MICROMACHINE No. 46
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