Off substrate flip-chip apparatus

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The latching off-chip arrangement of the present invention enables the prerelease of for example MEMS modules into a state that is accessible and convenient for ensuing processing such as bonding with for example an electronic circuit module to form a flip-chip MEMS device.
It appears especially desirable that the MEMS module in the present invention is free of its fabrication substrate and yet sufficiently well supported and protected to be of convenient access and manipulation capability during bonding and possibly other steps of the MEMS device fabrication sequence.
FIG.
1, FIG.
2, FIG.
3 and FIG.
4 in the drawings illustrate the use of this latching off-chip hinge mechanism in a preliminary overall manner.
In FIG.
1, FIG.
2 and FIG.
3 a flip-chip MEMS array is rotated and latched off the edge of a host module, i.
e.
, off a sacrificial substrate used to fabricate the MEMS module portion of the MEMS device.
As may be apparent to those skilled in the MEMS art it is also possible to reverse the roles of the MEMS module array and the electronic circuit module array in this FIG.
1, FIG.
2, FIG.
3 and FIG.
4 rotation based sequence with suitable modifications of the arrays.
A detailed description of the FIG.
1 and FIG.
2 mechanism and its fabrication, assuming selection of a provided optional MEMS module rotation option, follows the present overall introductory discussion.
The micromirror array 100 shown in FIG.
1 is arranged to include an 8.
times.
8 modules array of cantilever micromirror modules intended for marriage with similarly sized and compatibly disposed electronic circuit modules that may also be in array form.
The present invention is of course also applicable to individual devices that are not disposed in this array form.
In FIG.
1 the micromirror array 100 is attached to a hinge mechanism 102 through tethers 104 that can be severed once the array is rotated and bonded onto for example a CMOS receiving module array as is shown at 300 in FIG.
3