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Summary: T H E M E A R T I C L E
30 1070-9924/97/$10.00 © 1997 IEEE IEEE COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE & ENGINEERING
M
icromachining technologies for fabricat-
ing tiny sensors, actuators, mechanisms,
passive components, and even packages
for components--collectively called mi-
croelectromechanical systems or MEMS--are being devel-
oped successfully throughout the world.1
Examples of
these fabrication technologies include bulk microma-
chining, surface micromachining, laser-etching, micro-
electrodischarge machining, 3D printing, wafer bond-
ing, the dissolved-wafer silicon-on-glass process, LIGA
and high-aspect-ratio metal plating, and micromolding.
These methods have been used to produce many types
of MEMS products and prototype devices, including es-
pecially pressure sensors and accelerometers, but also
scanning probe tips for atomic force microscopes and
scanning tunneling microscopes, flow sensors, valves, mi-
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