Publication: Design and simulation of mems capacitive accelerometer
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Date
2009-04-01
Authors
Mohamed Sherafath Ali, Muhammad Azhar
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Abstract
Micromachining technology began to develop rapidly over 15 years ago, using materials
and processes developed for the integrated circuit industry to form miniature structures in silicon
and related materials for purposes other than electronic devices. MEMS is in some ways only an
evolution and expansion of this technology. As the term “Micro Electro Mechanical System”
suggests, MEMS technology relates most directly to sensors for mechanical variables, e.g.
acceleration, pressure, etc. The advantages of low cost, miniaturization, electronic integration
etc. available with MEMS technology has led to the development of micro scale sensors as an
important commercial product.
This project involves the design and simulation of an accelerometer by using MEMS
software. Accelerometer is an inertial sensor that measures the acceleration or deceleration of a
moving object. The accelerometer that will be designed in this project is of the variable gap type
capacitive device. The accelerometer uses capacitance change due to acceleration force as the
sensed parameter. The MEMS Software used to design the accelerometer is the CoventorWare
2008. CoventorWare 2008 supports both system-level and physical design approaches. The
Architect tool uses the information in the MPD and process files during the top-down design
simulation. A schematic model of the accelerometer was created. The dimensions of the
accelerometer were defined as global variables. The schematic was simulated under various
conditions by using Architect’s performance analyses. Plotting tools were used to view and
measure results in several graphical formats. After refining and finalizing a design, the design
was then transferred to 2-D layout using Layout Editor. For verification, a 3-D model was built,
meshed and simulated using the Analyzer solvers. In this report, two analysis will be conducted
which is the Architect Analysis and the Finite Element Method, or FEM Analysis. The results
obtained from the Architect Analysis will be compared with the result obtained from Finite
Element (FEM) Analysis. The accelerometer will detect high acceleration, g values up to 100g.
Therefore, it can be used in automotive applications.