Design and simulation of a novel 3D MEMS fabrication/micro cutting facility by thermally actuated MEMS device

In this paper we design and simulate a novel 3D MEMS fabrication/ micro cutting facility using Chevron electro-thermal actuators. The design takes into consideration of the coupled Electrical-thermal-structural mechanism for the actuator. The cutting stroke length and cutting force generated by the application of input voltage to the actuator has been studied. For input voltages ranging from 0.4 V to 1.2 V, the deflection of 0.18 to 0.45 μm with the cutting force of 70 to 180 μN has been achieved. For the chip area of 0.9×0.9 μm² and convection coefficient of 20 W/(m²K), 20 ms actuation time has been obtained.