Effect of Charge Injection Due to ESD on the Operation of MEMS

The relative effect of charge injection due to human body model (HBM) electrostatic discharge on the operation of capacitive microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) structures is studied. The influence on the operating characteristics as a function of feature size is analyzed; for small gaps (<10 mum), the modified Paschen´s law is applied. The results show that the relative effect of injected charge due to ESD increases inversely as the square of the gap separation for floating targets and inversely as the square of the plate area for grounded targets. For comparison purposes, the relative effect of charge injection due to triboelectrification is shown to be independent of device scaling.