Blind tracing of mechanical movement in electrostatic MEMS structures

Electro-statically driven micro-mechanical structures are an interesting and frequently used category of MEMS elements. Investigation of their properties is important both for better understanding the device operation and for fault detection and diagnosis. To follow the movement of micro-parts in such elements involves difficulties since device packages inhibit looking into the chip. Our motivation is to develop methods for tracing the movement of MEMS parts without optical inspection. This “blind” tracing seems to be possible by the recording and analysis of the charging/discharging current of the electro-static actuator.