Hello,

 I am responding in your request for information on MEMS aside from the
technology.  I think that your questions are very valid and not very well
investigated.  There is also a lot of disagreement between people about
MEMS for the future.  Some feel that CMOS MEMS is going to be the future
due to the ease of fabrication and the low cost because it uses already
developed CMOS technology.  CMOS MEMS was first introduced by NIST and
is limited which causes others to say that it will not be the future.
Baltes (University of Twente- MESA) has written some good papers on the future
of CMOS MEMS.

The other thing is that of where MEMS will be taken.  A good paper on the
future of all MEMS was published in the International Symposium on MEMS 1997.
I forgot the author, but it was a good paper about the future of MEMS in
several different areas.  If you are really interested, I can get you the
name of the author or fax you a copy just let me know.

I am interested in hearing what other people say about this issue since it
is quite controversial.  If you would not mind, please forward or post to
the mems group the results of this information gathering.
Thanks and let me know how I can aid you further.

-Angela Rasmussen
The George Washington University
The Institute of MEMS and VLSI Technology