| The anisotropic wet bulk etching of silicon wafers is one of the processes in the micromachining of MEMS devices. The crystallography of silicon and the characteristic of wet bulk etching of masked silicon wafer are introduced in this thesis. Computer simulation algorithms of silicon bulk wet etching are examined. Representative high level geometrical and low level atomic/cellular simulation algorithms are investigated. In view of the deficiencies in the existing algorithms, a novel anisotropic etching simulation algorithm named Vector Cellular Automata is presented in the thesis. The algorithm is robust, accurate, efficient and capable of dealing with complex mask shapes. The simulation results show agreement with experimental results. |
