Optimizing sensor packaging costs and performances in environmental applications

Sensor packaging has been identified as one of the most significant areas of research for enabling sensor usage in harsh environments for several application fields. Protection is one of the primary goals of sensor packaging; however, research deals not only with robust and resistant packages optimization, but also with electromagnetic performance. On the other hand, from the economic point of view, wireless sensor networks present hundreds of thousands of small sensors, namely motes, whose costs should be reduced at the lowest level, thus driving low the packaging cost also. So far, packaging issues have not been extended to such topics because these products are not yet in the advanced production cycle. However, in order to guarantee high EMC performance and low packaging costs, it is necessary to address the packaging strategy from the very beginning. Technological improvements that impacts on production time and costs can be suitable organized by anticipating the above mentioned issues in the development and design of the motes, obtaining in this way a significant reduction of final efforts for optimization. The paper addresses the development and production techniques necessary to identify the real needs in such a field and provides the suitable strategies to enhance industrial performance of high-volumes productions. Moreover the electrical and mechanical characteristics of these devices are reviewed and better identified in function of the environmental requirements and electromagnetic compatibility. Future developments complete the scenario and introduce the next mote generation characterized by a cost lower by an order of magnitude.