Efficient method of extracting the pull-in parameters of an electrostatically activated MEMS device for the purpose of designing the device

摘要

A method of efficiently extracting the pull-in parameters of an electrostatically activated actuator. The actuator is modeled as an elastic element. For each of a plurality of deformations of the elastic element, a corresponding voltage is calculated. The highest such voltage is the pull-in voltage of the actuator. The corresponding deformation is the pull-in deformation of the actuator. Each deformation is defined by fixing a displacement of one degree of freedom of the elastic body and calculating corresponding equilibrium displacements of all the other degrees of freedom without the application of any external mechanical forces to ensure equilibrium. The actuator is altered to optimize whichever pull-in parameter is relevant to the desired application of the actuator.