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. 13, 2005
Filed:
Nov. 17, 2003
Thomas Hantschel, Menlo Park, CA (US);
David K. Fork, Los Altos, CA (US);
Dirk DE Bruyker, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Chinnwen Shih, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Jeng Ping LU, San Jose, CA (US);
Christopher L. Chua, San Jose, CA (US);
Raj B. Apte, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Brent S. Krusor, Fremont, CA (US);
Thomas Hantschel, Menlo Park, CA (US);
David K. Fork, Los Altos, CA (US);
Dirk De Bruyker, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Chinnwen Shih, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Jeng Ping Lu, San Jose, CA (US);
Christopher L. Chua, San Jose, CA (US);
Raj B. Apte, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Brent S. Krusor, Fremont, CA (US);
Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
Spring structures are subjected to pre-release and post-release annealing to tune their tip height to match a specified target. Post-release annealing increases tip height, and pre-release annealing decreases tip height. The amount of tuning is related to the annealing temperature and/or time. Annealing schedules are determined for a pre-fabricated cache of unreleased spring structures such that finished spring structures having a variety of target heights can be economically produced by releasing/annealing the cache according to associated annealing schedules. Selective annealing is performed using lasers and heat absorbing/reflecting materials. Localized annealing is used to generate various spring structure shapes. Both stress-engineered and strain-engineered spring structures are tuned by annealing.