The strategic development of HARM manufacturing technologies

Abstract

 Whether they are called Micro System Technologies (MST), Micromachine Technologies or Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) market projections for products based on these technologies are bright. The marketplace is expected to range from $8 billion (Grace, R. et al, (1992)) to $14 billion (Gabrial, K., (1994)) by the turn of the century. However, the market for these products are currently still less than $1 billion. The transition from innovation in a technological sense to innovation in a business sense continues to be arduous for the products manufactured from any of the different manufacturing technologies that comprise the MST (Walsh, S. and Schumann, E. (1994)) technology base. This work is a discussion of one of the MST technology groups, High Aspect Ratio MEMS or (HARM). HARM based products are economically interesting because of their scope, performance leadership and potential cost leadership. However, there is a caveat. This technology is among the newest production technologies and is not closely related to semiconductor technologies. As a result, this technology does not have the infrastructure enjoyed by Sacrificial Surface Micromachining (SSM) and traditional bulk micromachining methods.