Fabrication and application of temperature triggered MEMS switch for active cooling control in Solid State Lighting system

• A temperature-triggered switch (TTS) integrated in silicon substrate was proposed.
• The cost-effective solution achieved an automatic regulation of the active cooling.
• The movement of TTS and the triggered temperature was predicted by 3D simulation.
• Reliability analysis was applied during design, manufacture and test.

As the power of Solid State Lighting (SSL) system continuously rising and consequently high temperature occurred in the light source, active cooling solutions with controlling were widely used and smart controlling was indispensable for less energy consuming. In this work, a micro–electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) based, temperature triggered, switch was developed as a cost-effective solution for smart cooling control in SSL systems. The switch (1.0 × 0.4 mm2) was embedded in a silicon substrate and fabricated with a single-mask 3D micro-machining process. The device switched on at a designed temperature threshold with a contact resistance less than 2 ohm, and switched off when the temperature dropped below that limit. In this way, this device can enhance the automatic control of a cooling system without any need of additional electronic components and the used standard semiconductor manufacturing process gives highly possibility for integration and fabrication for future silicon based SSL systems.