A novel method for fatigue testing of MEMS devices containing movable elements

In this paper we present a novel method for reliability testing of MEMS devices containing movable structures. A small size, simple and cheap vibration fatigue test equipment was designed and realized at BUTE and vibration fatigue tests were carried out on 10 samples of a LIS0L02AS4-type MEMS 3-axis inertial sensor provided by ST Microelectronics. The paper presents the test plan, the test equipment and the results with a detailed statistical comparison at the end. The work has been carried out within the framework of Patent-DfMM project. At different framework locations the same devices were tested by different methods in order to compare the test equipments and the results