A renewal weakest-link model of strength distribution of polycrystalline silicon MEMS Structures

Experimental data have made it abundantly clear that the strength of polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) structures exhibits significant variability, which arises from the random distribution of the size and shape of sidewall defects created by the manufacturing process. Test data also indicated that the strength statistics of MEMS structures depends strongly on the structure size. Understanding the size effect on the strength distribution is of paramount importance if experimental data obtained using specimens of one size are to be used with confidence to predict the strength statistics of MEMS devices of other sizes. In this paper, we present a renewal weakest-link statistical model for the failure strength of poly-Si MEMS structures. The model takes into account the detailed statistical information of randomly distributed sidewall defects, including their geometry and spacing, in addition to the local random material strength. The large-size asymptotic behavior of the model is derived based on the stability postulate. Through the comparison with the measured strength distributions of MEMS specimens of different sizes, we show that the model is capable of capturing the size dependence of strength distribution. Based on the properties of simulated random stress field and random number of sidewall defects, a simplified method is developed for efficient computation of strength distribution of MEMS structures.