Xerox Corporation

Feixia Pan

Joel A Kubby

Jingkuang Chen

Eric Peeters

David Kirtland Fork

Raj B Apte

Patrick Yasuo Maeda

Robert L Thornton

Decai Sun

Philip D Floyd

Tuan Anh Vo

James B Boyce

Ross D Bringans

Jackson H Ho

Ronald T Fulks

Kathleen Dore Boyce, Legal Representative

G A Neville Connell

Chingwen Yeh

Koenraad Van Schuylenbergh

Method and device for forming a membrane includes providing a glass substrate, and depositing a thin layer of chromium on the glass substrate. The thin layer of chromium is patterned to form a deflection electrode and interconnect leads. A sacrificial layer of aluminum is deposited on top of the patterned chromium layer, then the sacrificial layer is patterned to define anchor regions. On top of the sacrificial layer, a thick layer of chromium is deposited, and the thick layer of chromium is patterned to form a membrane. The sacrificial layer is then etched to release the membrane.

Surface micromachining process of MEMS ink jet drop ejectors on glass substrates

A micro-electromechanical fluid ejector that is easily fabricated in a standard polysilicon surface micromachining process is disclosed, which can be batch fabricated at low cost using existing external foundry capabilities. In addition, the surface micromachining process has proven to be compatible with integrated microelectronics, allowing for the monolithic integration of the actuator with addressing electronics. A voltage drive mode and a charge drive mode for the power source actuating a deformable membrane is also disclosed.

Method of fabricating a micro-electro-mechanical fluid ejector

A low power, nonvolatile microelectromechanical memory cell stores data. This memory cell uses a pair of cantilevers, to store a bit of information. The on and off state of this mechanical latch is switched by using, for example, electrostatic forces applied sequentially on the two cantilevers. The cantilevers are partially overlapping. Changing the relative position of the cantilevers determines whether they are electrically conducting or not. One state represents a logical &ldquo;1&rdquo;. The other state represents a logical &ldquo;0&rdquo;. After a bit of data is written, the cantilevers are locked by mechanical forces inherent in the cantilevers and will not change state unless a sequential electrical writing signal is applied. The sequential nature of the required writing signal makes inadvertent or noise related data corruption highly unlikely. This MEMS memory cell can be implemented, for example, using a three-polysilicon-layer surface micro-machining process. The mechanical nature of the memory cell makes the cell immune to radiation. The cell is compatible with existing VLSI processes. Therefore monolithic memory devices comprising, for example, a plurality of the memory cells, read/write circuitry, and I/O circuitry, can be made using inexpensive, standard processes. The memory devices can be used in almost any electronic device requiring memory. For example the memory device is used in document processors, cell phones and satellites.

Electromechanical memory cell

Micro-electro-mechanical fluid ejector and method of operating same

A micro-electromechanical bistable shutter display device is provided capable of being implemented for both small screen, high resolution devices and for large billboard-type displays. The micro-electromechanical shutter assembly has bi-stability characteristics which allow the use of only a holding voltage to maintain an image. The micro-electromechanical shutter assembly includes a shutter having petal-like shutter segments covering reflective or transmittive films. To expose the film in a particular shutter assembly, its shutter segments are moved from the horizontal to a vertical position using electrostatic attraction forces to &ldquo;collapse&rdquo; the torsionally-hinged shutter segments. The shutter assembly can have a number of segments, as long as the resulting shutter assembly shape can be stacked to form a dense 2D array.

Micro-electromechanical based bistable color display sheets

Growing community of inventors

Webster, NY, United States of America

Feixia Pan