Written as a collective work by 14 outstanding microsystems packaging specialists from US industries, government laboratories and universities, MEMS Packaging provides a comprehensive view of the prevalent practices and enabling techniques in the assembly, packaging and testing of MEMS and microsystems. The book also addresses aspects of microassembly and testing technologies that are often overlooked.

The use of MEMS resonators for signal processing is relatively new and has the potential to change the topology of newer generation circuits. New materials, design and fabrication processes, and integration with conventional circuitry will need to be considered.

By bonding a thin wafer of active silicon to a thicker wafer via a layer of insulating oxide to form an SOI structure it is possible to substantially improve the performance and integration of microelectronic circuits produced by very large scale integration (VLSI). For example, the recently announced IBM Power 4 'server-ona- chip' integrates two microprocessors, a high bandwidth system switch, a large memory cache and input/output functions. SOI wafer bonding is also an enabling technology in the rapidly growing field of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).