Silicon Integrated MEMS Technology 1974-1991

The United States has been developing silicon-integrated piezoresistive sensing devices since the 1960s. Pfann and Thurston integrated diffusion piezoresistive elements with silicon elements in 1961. [Pfann WG, Thurston RN. Semiconducting stress transducers utilizing the transverse and shear piezoresistance effects. Journal of Applied Physics 32, 2008 (1961); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1728280]; [Tufte ON, Chapman PW, Long D. Silicon diffused-element piezoresistive diaphragms. Journal of Applied Physics 33, 3322 (1962); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1931164].

After it became known that NASA was doing this work, the Ministry of General Machine Building of the USSR also began R&D since the early 1970s.

Already by 1991, the results of implementation in organizations confirm the importance of this work.