CAE environment for the design of capacitive micromachined sound and ultrasound transducers

We present a newly developed computer aided engineering (CAE) tool for the design of capacitative micromachined sound and ultrasound transducers. The numerical scheme is based on the finite element (FE) method and takes all relevant nonlinearities (geometric nonlinearity of the mechanical structures, electrostatic force, moving body in an electrostatic field) and couplings between the different physical fields (electrostatic, mechanical and acoustical fields) into account. The applicability of the CAE tool is demonstrated by two practical examples: mechanical and acoustic crosstalk in capacitative micromachined ultrasound transducers (CMUTs) and total harmonic distortion of micromachined silicon microphones.