Introduction

 
The National Program of Smart Microstructures and Micro Systems (NPMASS) coordinated by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), Govt. of India, have taken an initiative to augment MEMS Design activities in the country. In this endeavour IITs and IISc have been identified as the resource centres for mentoring a few reputed institutions to cultivate and expand the MEMS design activities. The Coordinator for East and North Eastern Regions, Prof. Tarun Bhattacharyya of IIT-Kharagpur, proposed to include this Institute as one of the Design Centres, and requested us to submit our plan of activities.

 
The faculties of the department welcomed the proposal and a plan was sent accordingly. Subsequently about sixty locations have been identified to establish MEMS Design Centre of which our Institute has been included in the list as Tier II Centre. The news of the inclusion of our Institute in the programme was conveyed in the DC meeting held on April 08, 2009, in which the members welcomed the decision. It was also resolved that our M. Tech in Radio Physics and Electronics as well as in VLSI Design would be revised to include both theoretical and design work related to MEMS Design.

 
Certificate

 
The following certificate was furnished by the Department/ University for establishment of the Centre.

 

CERTIFICATE

    I/We agree that •
            A National MEMS Design Centre (NMDC), will be established as a common facility at this Institute to install the software tools provided by National Program on Micro And Smart Systems (NPMASS) for the benefit of users from the region. The name of the funding agency would be appropriately displayed in front of this facility.
            NMDC will initiate steps for utilizing the software tools in related course work at the Institute/ University/ college subject to the academic process of approval.
            The Coordinator certified below will be responsible to provide the Annual Report at the end of every financial year, containing information on the utilization of all software tools supplied by NPMASS to the Project Director, NPMASS with a copy to Dr. K.J. Vinoy (kjvinoy@ece.iisc.ernet.in / kjvinoy@ieee.org), the project coordinator from IISc.
            Coordinators from this Institute will make a presentation at the annual meeting as required by NPMASS.

     
    This Institute/university agrees to allow the Coordinator listed below to attend all annual review and technical events organized by NPMASS. In case of unavoidable circumstances an alternate will be sent to attend these events. The travel expenses will be met by NPMASS.
    I/We certify that the coordinator and other faculty mentioned below has research interest in the area of relevance to NPMASS, and will ensure proper utilization of all facilities and software provided under this activity.

     
    I/We agree to abide by the terms and conditions of the NPMASS and certify that basic necessary facilities including Lab space and the necessary hardware accessories for installing software tools for the proposed work are available and the same will be extended to the Coordinators.
    I/We agree to ensure that at least one BE/B.Tech./MSc project will be carried out each year with emphasis on design and analysis. Summary and other details of these will be included in the Annual reports of this NMDC.

     
    I/We agree that this institute would facilitate external researchers from other interested institutes (academic or National Labs subject to individual software licensing conditions) to use the design tools.
    I/We certify that in case the present Coordinators are not available for any reason to continue the work on the facilities, alternative arrangements will be made to employ suitable person/persons.

Activities till February 28, 2010

 
Location

 
The infrastructure and equipment for this program was provided by the RPE through the UGC-NRC Program. The software components were provided through the NPMASS program. Currently the MEMS design center is housed at the Sisir Mitra Bhavan, Rajabazar Technology campus. There are three high-end desktop computers that hosts the MEMS design software. Several faculty members, B.Tech students as well as M. Tech students are directly involved in this program.

 
Hardware infrastructure

 
Three Desktop computers have been procured and installed. One of them will act as a server. The machines have the following configurations: Quad Core 2.66 GHz Intel processor, Graphics Card with 1GB memory, 2x2GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive, DVD Writer, 22-inch high resolution TFT monitor (Samsung). The operating system for all machines is WinXP.

 
MEMS Design software

 
The University of Calcutta has been provided with the software Intellisuite and Comsol. Coventorware has not been provided at this stage. Comsol was successfully installed at RPE MEMs design center in December, 2009, and currently both B. Tech and M. Tech students are using this software. Intellisuite was installed in February 2010, and currently the students are working with the vendor to work out a few technical issues.

 
Names and research topics of students/staff using these facilities

 
    Staff members involved in the MEMs Design Center, at the present moment, are :

Prof.  P. K. Basu
Prof.  Susanta Sen
Dr. Anirban Bhattacharyya
Dr. Soumya Pandit
    Current students utilizing MEMS facilities:

M. Tech Student: Subhadip Bhaumik

B. Tech Students: Dip Prakash Samajdar,
      Dhiman Mallick
      Pranay Kanti Poddar
      Nilanjan Kundu

 
The M. Tech. and B. Tech projects of the above mentioned students are based on the design and implementation of MEMs devices, and will cover both the design of MEMs devices using COMSOL and INTELLISUITE as well as fabrication of simple MEMs structures. They are currently in their third (for M. Tech) and fifth (for B. Tech) semesters respectively and will complete their projects by the middle of 2010. Since they are early in their respective research programs, they are currently involved in understanding the fundamentals of MEMs devices and in getting acquainted with the design tools.

 
Workshops

 
A two-day workshop was organized by IIT Kharagpur in the month of January 2010 on the design of MEMs devices. From the department of Radiophysics and Electronics, faculty member Dr Soumya Pandit, and M. Tech student Subhadip Bhaumik attended the workshop.