Fatigue analysis of microstructures Zusammenfassung: AbstractThe last couple of decades have witnessed a fast shift towards the miniaturization of many devices and products. These products with sizes well below their conventional counterparts are now commonly available in commercial markets. In this miniaturization trend the semiconductor industry is on the forefront. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology which has its roots in conventional electronic industry; is also experiencing this shift. The on going miniaturization of these MEMS devices on the one hand opens new horizons for their applicability whereas on the other hand it raises questions and doubts on the issue of their mechanical reliability. Silicon and polysilicon which are typical materials for the MEMS industry due to their brittle nature commonly experience shocks and overload failures. It is until now that experimental investigations have revealed that these materials also fail due to fatigue. Furthermore metals which are not only tough but also poses tremendous compatibility with many microfabrication techniques i.e. electric discharge machining (EDM) electrochemical machining (ECM) laser cutting etching Lithographie Galvanik und Abformung (LIGA) micro forging etc. are also used in MEMS devices. The issue of fatigue failure becomes even more serious with the use of these metallic materials as they in conventional sizes fail on much lower number of stress cycle as compare to silicon. Although immense amount of data exists related to the fatigue failure of metals in conventional sizes but they cannot be used for metallic samples with sizes in micrometres range due to the so called “size effect” phenomena. To investigate different internal and external microstructural effects on fatigue not only new test methodologies needs to be developed but also specimens with small sizes i.e. mm µm should be prepared tested and results should be compared with its conventional counterparts. In this research work fatigue test setup was proposed and developed which operated on the phenomena of electromagnetic excitation technique