Computational study of the effect of finger width and aspect ratios for the electrostatic levitating force of MEMS combdrive

Abstract

Since the width ratio between movable and fixed fingers, and the aspect ratio between the height and width of fingers, can play very important roles for combdrive levitation control, computational study of variations in those parameters for electrostatic levitating force acting on the movable finger is indispensable for MEMS performance. For diverse finger width and aspect ratios of MEMS combdrive design, the BEM has become a better method than the domain-type FEM because BEM can provide a complete solution in terms of boundary values only, with substantial saving in modeling effort. DBEM still has some advantages over conventional BEM for singularity, so the DBEM was used to simulate the fringing of field around the edges of the fixed finger and movable finger of MEMS combdrive for diverse finger width and aspect ratios. Results show that the less the finger width ratio is, the larger the levitating force acting is. Furthermore, the levitating force becomes more dominant as the aspect ratio increases, but it will be kept constant while the aspect ratio becomes larger.