In the study titled “Conformal Hermetic Sealing of Wireless Microelectronic Implantable Chiplets by Multilayered Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD),” introducing a groundbreaking method for hermetic sealing of sub-millimeter-sized microelectronic chiplets used in wireless body implants.
This method utilizes ultrathin and electromagnetically transparent atomic layer deposition (ALD) coatings to achieve fully 3D conformal encapsulation of wirelessly powered microdevices. These chiplets, which embed custom application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) with radio frequency (RF) transmitters, are encapsulated by a stack of alternating layers of hafnium oxide and silicon dioxide.
The goal is to maximize impermeability to water and ionic penetration while minimizing the volume of the packaging material. To assess the hermeticity of the devices, accelerated aging tests in saline at elevated temperatures are conducted. Continued functionality is monitored by evaluating backscattered RF signals to detect possible degradation and electronic failure.
The study reveals that wirelessly functional devices show no signs of degradation for over 100 days, implying an equivalent lifetime of over 10 years at physiological temperatures. This approach is not only effective but also scalable to high throughput batch processing of hundreds of microchiplets, offering a reliable methodology for hermetic packaging of microscale biomedical chronic implants.
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Article with all rights reserved, courtesy of onlinelibrary.wiley.com.
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