The Implementation of a Novel Magnified Cascade Configuration Using A Vertical Electrostatic Actuator

An electrostatic actuator with novel cascade configuration called Cascade Vertical Actuator (CVA) is developed to magnify the actuation stroke. The CVA combines the vertical comb drive and multi-stage structure to form a stacked actuation configuration that can be used to overcome the stroke constrain of a single vertical comb drive. The static FEM simulation and dynamic modeling are used to verify the proposed design. The CVA device is fabricated through a standard 0.35μm 2P4M (double polysilicon quadruple metal) CMOS process and post-CMOS process. Experimental results indicated the stroke of the proposed CVA can magnify three times than the standard vertical comb drive with the same chip size.