Plan Optik AG
	NEWS 2007 July 2007 Micro fluidics in industry The number of applications for chemical reactions in need of better temperature control and residence time control is significantly raising. Providing these features, micro fluidic tools became more attractive, not only in science and development but also in industrial synthesis of fine chemicals. The complexity of these tools is getting higher and higher. Micro fluidic tools have evolved into complex "micro reactors", which are more than a simple micro mixer or residence time tool. They include different mixers, heat transceivers and interfaces for measuring and controlling. The aim of this development is the substitution of classical facilities to get a higher efficiency by keeping the same output. It was crucial for this reason, that the manufacturing of small fluid guiding structures needs to be improved strongly. Additionally it became necessary to create different options regarding material and features of the micro fluidic tools. The spectrum includes tools made of steel, polymer, ceramic, silicon and different types of glass. Glass, the traditional and most common material for chemical and biological applications covers the biggest part of the micro fluidic market. The chemical resistance and the high temperature stability of up to 1,100 degree C is predestined for this application. Little Things Factory (LTF) in Germany, an associate company of Plan Optik AG structures glass, silicon and ceramics in a very smart way using a modified sandblasting process, called "micro sandblasting". These structured, semi finished products are assembled by thermal fusion bonding or other technologies to create complete micro reactors. The development of complete micro reactors creates a lot of connection possibilities which all can be realized by Little Things Factory - even connection threads in glass. Customized micro reactors include measuring and inspection features for the chemical processes inside the reactors as an option. Little Things Factory provides tools for temperature control, pressure control, pH-value control, conductivity measurements and determining optical properties. This software is a stand alone product and offers the creation of recipes at any computer, transmitting the recipes and to observe the process via LAN and the world wide web. Little Things Factory is promoting this technology especially in education and science. Those special micro reactors indicate all features of a regular micro reactor and can be used in almost all existing infrastructures of laboratories. More detailed information can be found at  www.ltf-gmbh.de 21.06.2007 Electrical vias in silicon and glass wafers Plan Optik AG draws on an exceptional technology to combine glass and silicon in multifarious ways in regards to the fabrication of sophisticated substrates for MEMS and optoelectronics applications. The specific properties of glass, especially the optical transparency and electrical insulation, are used for MEMS fabrication to realize most diverse devices in all fields of micro technology right from the start. Plan Optik offers silicon-glass-compound wafers, which allow the combination of both materials in the same wafer to take advantage of each material. Plan Optik is able to fabricate e.g. silicon wafers with glass inlets, which are used as optical window or as insulating ground for RF parts. The surface of such kind of wafers is similar to standard silicon wafers and is characterized by low ttv and roughness. The mixture of silicon and glass can vary in a very large range. Silicon wafers with glass inlets as well as glass wafers with silicon inlets can be produced. The structure shape and arrangement is almost free of design rules. The minimum structure size is limited to about 50 microns and the typical wafer thickness is in the range of 200 to 500 microns. A special type of silicon-glass-compound wafers are wafers with electrical via's. In this case highly doped silicon is used to realize conductive vias through the substrate with a possible electrical resistance less than 1 Ohm. In general, three types of such wafers can be realized: Silicon wafers with single vias, whereby each via is insulated by a surrounding glass bushing Silicon wafers with larger glass areas including several via's Glass wafers with highly doped silicon via's (shown in picture) The main application of these electrical via wafers is waferlevel packaging (WLP) of MEMS devices. The via wafer is used as a cap wafer to combine vacuum tight encapsulation and vertical electrical connection of all devices on the wafer simultaneously. 18.06.2007 Innovative Substrates for MEMS Plan Optik AG, the world market leader in glass wafer production for MEMS applications, offers the following wafer level packaging substrates: blank glass wafers drilled glass wafers for Si microphones, pressure sensors and similar applications glass-Si compound wafers (glass-on-silicon and silicon-on-glass) glass wafers with cavities (e.g. for WLP of optical MEMS) glass wafers with conductive vias for vertical WLP microlens wafers for optical MEMS All wafers produced by Plan Optik are characterized by low ttv, thickness tolerance, low roughness and high surface quality. Plan Optik set the benchmark regarding perfect glass wafer surfaces by introducing it's proprietary development MDF polishing to the market. MDF (Micro Damaging Free) polished wafers are suitable for wet etching processes and avoid the well known issue sub surface damaging which can lead to defects. Sub surface damaging leads to small cavities and interconnections between the etched structures, weakens the bonding interface and results in a low yield. The use of MDF polished wafers leads to reliable wet etching results and provides a high wafer processing yield. MDF polished wafers are available as blank wafers as well as including holes and cavities produced by USHD (ultra sonic high speed drilling) – another invention of Plan Optik. MDF polished wafers complete the wide spectrum of glass and fused silica wafer options produced by Plan Optik AG - a well-established German company that has gone public with great success in the end of 2005.   BACK