Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
Micromechanics
We suggest a new technology for the production of low-cost micromechanical
devices that is based on the application of microequipment, similar to conventional
mechanical equipment, but much smaller. It permits us to use the conventional
technology for the mechanical treatment of materials and for the automatic assem-
bly of mechanical and electronic devices for manufacturing micromechanical and
microelectromechanical devices of submillimeter sizes. We call it “Microequip-
ment Technology” (MET).
8.1 The Main Problems of Microfactory Creation
MET will use microequipment for manufacturing commercial products and in turn
will produce the necessary microequipment units. The decrease in manufacturing
costs of microdevices will be achieved on the basis of mass parallel production
processes used in MET [
1
], instead of the batch processes used in Microelectro-
mechanical Systems (MEMS) [
2
-
4
]. In accordance with MET, sequential genera-
tions of microequipment are to be created (Fig.
8.1
)[
5
,
6
].
The micromachine tools of the first generation could have an overall size of 100-
200 mm. These sizes correspond to those of the Japanese microfactory machine
tools [
7
]. These machine tools could be produced by conventional mechanical
equipment. Using the first generation microequipment, it is possible to produce
micromachine tools, microassembly devices, and so on of the second generation.
After that, each new generation of microequipment could be produced using the
microequipment of the previous generations and should have microequipment
smaller than that of previous generations. The microequipment of each generation
could be produced from low-cost components. The required precision could be
obtained due to a decrease of the machine tool size and a use of adaptive control
algorithms. So, low cost and the possibility of scaling down components are the
main demands of the proposed method of microequipment creation. On the basis of
this method, we began to develop prototypes of the microequipment. In 1997, the
