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:
Jul. 18, 2000
Filed:
Jul. 29, 1998
Paul P Merchant, Belmont, CA (US);
Storrs Hoen, Brisbane, CA (US);
Agilent Technolgies, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A palladium contact and a gasket are formed on a first wafer. The gasket and contact are simultaneously engaged with a silicon layer of a second wafer. The wafers are then heated to a temperature that both forms a bond between the palladium contact of the first wafer with the silicon layer of the second wafer and that fuses the gasket to the second wafer. Therefore, when the temperature is decreased, the palladium-silicon bond maintains the alignment of the two wafers with respect to one another, and the gasket hardens to form seal around a periphery of the two wafers. By placing the two wafers in a vacuum environment prior to engaging the two wafers, the space encompassed by the gasket and the two wafers forms a sealed vacuum during the heating process. Therefore, the heating process not only forms a palladium-silicon bond between the two wafers, but it also forms a vacuum seal around selected components included within either of the two wafers.