Harvey Nathanson, father of MEMS, dies
by Steve BushThe creator if the first MEMS device, Harvey Nathanson, has died.
He built a resonant horizontal wand-like structure while working for Westinghouse in the 1960s.
“Working out of the Westinghouse Research Labs in 1965 he conceived of a microscopic device used as a tuner for microelectronic radios,” according to this obituary by Ralph Schugar Chapel in Pittsburgh. “The invention, known as the resonant-gate transistor, became the first device in the field of MEMS. “In his work developing similar devices, he pioneered a method of mass production that would later become a mainstay of MEMS manufacturing.”
In the 1968 patent (pictured) the rod is biased negatively, allowing it to be electrostatically driven by ac on the central capacitive plate, and also allowing its movement to be sensed through conduction modulation between two n-wells (dotted L-shaped) within the p-type substrate.
Although a circular cross-section resonator is shown in the diagram above, the patent later includes a method for building a ‘diving board’ style resonator using epitaxy, and then etching it free.
Images used above are taken from this Google patents page, and are of US patent 3,413,573 by Harvey Nathanson and Robert Wickstrom. Electronics Weekly will remove them immediately if it has used them inappropriately.