Design and analysis of resonant drive circuit for electrostatic actuators

Most electrostatic actuators fabricated by MEMS technologies require high actuation voltage and suffer from the pull-in phenomenon in the presence of high parasitic capacitance, either driven by conventional voltage control or charge control. The resonant drive circuit presented in this paper uses much lower supply voltage to drive electrostatic actuators, which usually require a high actuation voltage from a high voltage amplifier, through passive amplification at its electrical resonance. Furthermore, it is shown that the resonant drive circuit is able to extend operation range of electrostatic actuators beyond the pull-in point even in the presence of high parasitic capacitance due to its inherent negative feedback. Analytical and numerical models of the resonant drive circuit are derived and built to demonstrate the advantages of the resonant drive circuit implemented with two logic gates arranged in the BTL configuration.