Nonlinear elastic coupling in tether-suspended MEMS

Author

Davis, W.O. ; Pisano, A.P. ; O´Reilly, O.M.

Author_Institution

Microvision Inc., Bothell, WA, USA

fYear

2005

fDate

30 Jan.-3 Feb. 2005

Firstpage

129

Lastpage

132

Abstract

This paper presents stiffness coefficients for the geometrical nonlinear elastic coupling inherent to typical MEMS suspensions. In addition, our model provides an explanation for quadrature error in vibratory gyroscopes, which has commonly been attributed to device asymmetries and other imperfections. Through numerical simulations we show that significant quadrature error motion exists even for devices with perfectly ideal symmetry. The simulated dynamics are compared to experimental measurements in the literature. Another finding is the existence of optimal MEMS suspension designs free of cubic nonlinearity, which is confirmed by finite element analysis.

Keywords

couplings; finite element analysis; micromechanical devices; MEMS suspensions; cubic nonlinearity; device asymmetries; finite element analysis; nonlinear elastic coupling; quadrature error motion; stiffness coefficients; tether-suspended MEMS; vibratory gyroscopes; Capacitive sensors; Couplings; Finite element methods; Gyroscopes; Micromechanical devices; Nonlinear equations; Numerical simulation; Poisson equations; Suspensions; Torque;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2005. MEMS 2005. 18th IEEE International Conference on

ISSN

1084-6999

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8732-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2005.1453884

Filename

1453884