This poster aims to show the possibilities of a small scale research lab that focusses on surface micromachining processes without CMOS compatibility. Its size of 100 m^2 cleanroom keeps the flexibility to easily introduce exceptional materials but nevertheless offers a set of standard procedures for UV lithography and UV depth lithography, wet etching, electroplating, PVD, dry etching, packaging and characterization, respectively. The installations are optimized for 100 mm wafers and low temperature (< 150°C) surface micromachining, see figure.

The technology foci are Direct LIGA and long term stable ultra thick (200 µm .. 1.2 mm) functional materials based on epoxy resins. The combination of UV Direct LIGA (lithography, subsequent automatically driven electroplating and final release of metal structures from polymer molds) and nanotechnology offer potential for new MEMS and NEMS.

The nanotechnology aspect is introduced by the wafer level integration of ion track etched polymer membranes, e.g. made by GSI material research. The membranes act as molds for electroplating while UV lithography shapes the outer dimensions of the nanowire arrays.

Substrate materials currently comprise Silicon, glasses, ceramics and printed circuit board glass fibre reinforced plastic (FR4). Structures are made of Ni, Cu, Au, Cr, Al, epoxy resins like different SU-8 formulations, polycarbonate and combinations of those.

Figure: Part of the cleanroom laboratory installations, for details see http://www.emk.tu-darmstadt.de/en/institute/equipment/