The reliability, packaging, testing, and characterization of MEMS/MOEMS is of paramount importance to the commercialization of these advanced and useful emerging technologies. We are pleased to present this special section on reliability, packaging, testing, and characterization of MEMS and MOEMS for the readers of the Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS.

Some of these papers were originally presented at the Reliability, Packaging, Testing, and Characterization of MEMS/MOEMS conference held in San Jose, California, in January 2008, which was part of the SPIE MOEMS-MEMS 2008 Micro and Nanofabrication symposium at Photonics West. The contributors to this special section are from Thailand, Switzerland, Taiwan, India, and the United States. The main objective of this special section was to provide a source for technical papers for in-depth investigations and interdisciplinary discussions involving reliability, packaging, testing, and characterization of MEMS/MOEMS. The response to the call for papers for this special section has been superb, and the resulting section is technically rewarding to the MEMS/MOEMS community.

We would like to personally thank all the reviewers of this reliability special section for their unstinted and timely support in reviewing the articles. We also want to thank all the authors and coauthors of this section for their interest in publishing their valuable research efforts in this special section. We would like to thank Dr. Burn J. Lin, Editor-in-Chief of JM³, Dr. Thomas Suleski, senior editor, and Dr. Ed Motamedi, senior editor, for providing us with the opportunity to act as the guest editors of this special section. Finally, our deep gratitude is directed to Karolyn Labes and Felicia Andreotta of the SPIE staff for their kind support and assistance in organizing this special section.