title: Fabrication and test of a hermetic miniature implant package with 360 electrical feedthroughs.
abstract: A fabrication technology for small hermetic implant packages with large numbers of electrical feedthroughs is presented. First prototypes were fabricated on a ceramic substrate of 25·25 mm area, having a metal cup of 5 mm height soldered to it. These prototypes provide 360 feedthroughs. The electrical properties of the feedthroughs are characterized and the leakage rate of the packages is determined using helium fine leak tests. The amount of water sealed inside the packages is investigated. Based on maximum allowable water vapour concentrations inside hermetic packages reported in literature and applying a commonly accepted mathematical model, we predicted a minimum lifetime to water-induced failure of a few hundred years.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Biomedical Microtechnology, Dept. of Microsystems Engineering - IMTEK, University of Freiburg, Germany. schuettler@ieee.org
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schuettler
authors.forename: Juan S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Ordonez
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Silva Santisteban
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schatz
authors.forename: Juergen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wilde
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Stieglitz
mesh_terms: D004559:Electric Wiring; D004582:Electronics, Medical / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006813:Humidity; D008904:Miniaturization; D019064:Product Packaging / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019736:Prostheses and Implants