doi:10.3850/978-981-08-6555-9_176

ABSTRACT

A variety of self-assembly procedures have been introduced. An interesting application of this technology is the manufacturing of heterogeneously integrated electronic circuits. The two main approaches are top-down and bottomup self-assembly. Top-down self-assembly is a massively parallel approach for assembly and alignment of small but highly functional parts onto a substrate without using additional machinery. This paper introduces an approach where electrostatic forces are used to achieve top-down self-alignment of tiny parts or accurate alignment of dies, e.g. integrated electronic circuits. With this approach complementary and electrically conductive micro-structured patterns serve as alignment structures. Previous experimental results have verified that it is feasible to accomplish selfassembly and accurate alignment of micro-structured parts with electrostatic attraction. Here, the foundation of a software tool for the simulation of part motion under the proposed approach is set by producing a semi-empirical selfaligning force model and using it to study the kinematics. The presented simulations tool along with the experimental results are the first steps towards the modelling and the implementation of a parallel assembly approach of tiny parts and thereby integration of heterogeneous materials.

Keywords: Electrostatic self-assembly, Simulation.

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