Modeling and simulation of silicon micromechanical electrostatic comb-drive resonator

Abstract

In the field of microelectromechanical systems, a challenge to MEMS designers is to create low-order dynamic device models that can accurately capture the complex behaviors which may be discovered only through experiments or full three-dimensional simulations. Computer aided design (CAD) tools allow modeling and simulation of devices that may not have been constructed yet, but now only few softwares are available for modeling and analysis of microsystems. In this paper, we attempt to use MEMSPRO and ANSYS to fulfill the modeling and simulation of silicon micromechanical electrostatic comb drive resonators. A 3D model is constructed. Then the model is analyzed by a finite element analysis tool, ANSYS. We implement the static responses and harmonic responses of the model so that the static and dynamic characteristics of the resonator can be obtained to help improve design quality and efficiency. Based on the analysis results, low-order dynamic device model of the resonator can be tuned and further optimized. The effectiveness of the CAD/CAE technology in the development of MEMS is demonstrated in the paper.