The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 09, 1997
Filed:
Feb. 27, 1995
Richard L Knipe, McKinney, TX (US);
John H Tregilgas, Richardson, TX (US);
Thomas W Orent, Garland, TX (US);
Hidekazu Yoshihara, Plano, TX (US);
Texas Instruments Incorporated, Dallas, TX (US);
Abstract
An electrically addressable, integrated, monolithic, micromirror device (10) is formed by the utilization of sputtering techniques, including various metal and oxide layers, photoresists, liquid and plasma etching, plasma stripping and related techniques and materials. The device (10) includes a selectively electrostatically deflectable mass or mirror (12) of supported by one or more beams (18) formed by sputtering and selective etching. The beams (18) are improved by being constituted of an impurity laden titanium-tungsten layer (52) with an impurity such as nitrogen, which causes the beams to have lattice constant different from TiW. The improved beams (18) exhibit increased strength, and decreased relaxation and creep.