Reliability of MEMS inertial devices in mechanical and thermal environments: A review

The reliability of MEMS inertial devices applied in complex environments involves interdisciplinary fields, such as structural mechanics, material mechanics and multi-physics field coupling. Nowadays, MEMS inertial devices are widely used in the fields of automotive industry, consumer electronics, aerospace and missile guidance, and a variety of reliability issues induced by complex environments arise subsequently. Hence, reliability analysis and design of MEMS inertial devices are becoming increasingly significant. Since the reliability issues of MEMS inertial devices are mainly caused by complex mechanical and thermal environments with intricate failure mechanisms, there are fewer reviews of related research in this field. Therefore, this paper provides an extensive review of the research on the reliability of typical failure modes and mechanisms in MEMS inertial devices under high temperature, temperature cycling, vibration, shock, and multi-physical field coupling environments in the last five to six years. It is found that though multiple studies exist examining the reliability of MEMS inertial devices under single stress, there is a dearth of research conducted under composite stress and a lack of systematic investigation. Through analyzing and summarizing the current research progress in reliability design, it is concluded that multi-physical field coupling simulation, theoretical modeling, composite stress experiments, and special test standards are important directions for future reliability research on MEMS inertial devices.