TECHNI CAL PAPER

Numerical simulation and analysis of electrically actuated

microbeam-based MEMS capacitive switch
Xun-jun He Qun Wu Yue Wang
Ming-xin Song Jing-hua Yin
Received: 17 January 2008 / Accepted: 20 August 2008 / Published online: 14 October 2008
Springer-Verlag 2008
Abstract The MEMS capacitive switch based on xed-
xed microbeam has garnered signicant attention due to
their geometric simplicity and broad applicability. The
accurate model which describes the multiphysical coupled-
eld of MEMS capacitive switch should be developed to
predict their electromechanical behaviors. The improved
macromodel of the xed-xed microbeam-based MEMS
capacitive switch is presented to investigate the behavior of
electrically actuated MEMS capacitive switch in this paper,
the macromodel provides an effective and accurate design
tool for this class of MEMS devices because of taking
account into some effects simultaneously including fring-
ing eld effect, midplane stretching effect, residual stress
and multiphysical coupled-eld effect. The numerical
analysis of mechanical characterizations of electrically
actuated microbeam-based MEMS capacitive switch are
performed by the nite element Newmark method, and the
performances of static and dynamic of MEMS capacitive
switch are obtained. The numerical results show that, with
only a few nodes used in the computation, the FEM-
Newmark gives the identical results to other numerical
methods, such as the shooting method and experiments.
Moreover, the proposed model can offer proper and
convenient approach for numerical calculations, and pro-
mote design of MEMS devices.
1 Introduction
In recent years, the eld of micro-electro-mechanical sys-
tem (MEMS) capacitive switches has grown rapidly and
entered into many defense and communication applica-
tions, and the advanced technologies for fabricating a
variety of MEMS capacitive switches have developed to
meet the high demand from industries (System Planning
Corporation 1999). On the other hand, the design tools
have not kept up pace with this grown, there is still a need
for computational tools that can allow engineers to quickly
design and optimize mechanical performances (Senturia
et al. 1997). Currently, the mechanical characterizations of
electrically actuated MEMS capacitive switches have been
studied using different models and approaches to seeking
simple and efcient simulation methods with high accu-
racy. Therefore, the modeling schemes for these MEMS
components can be roughly categorized into two groups
(Younis and Abdel-Rahman 2003). The rst group uses
simple lumped mass models to predict the mechanical
behavior, but the designers cannot address MEMS devices.
The second group can be called reduced-order models
which highlight the major mechanical behavior and inu-
ential factors of the MEMS component by the models,
moreover it allows the designers to simulate the MEMS
components quickly. For instance, the static linear analysis
was used to generate the linear modes of the device and
formulate device dynamic behavior in terms of a nite set
of the linear modes (Ananthasuresh et al. 1996). However,
static linear modes may not adequately capture the
X.-j. He Q. Wu (&)
School of Electronics and Information Technology,
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China
e-mail: qwu@hit.edu.cn
X.-j. He Y. Wang M.-x. Song J.-h. Yin
School of Applied Sciences, Harbin University of Science
and Technology, Harbin, China
e-mail: hexunjun@yahoo.com.cn
123
Microsyst Technol (2009) 15:301307
DOI 10.1007/s00542-008-0702-4
nonlinear dynamic behavior of the device. When the
problem involves dissipative damping effect, this approach
becomes much more difcult. The Arnoldi method adopted
to automatically generate reduced-order models for a xed-
xed beam structure (Wang and White 1998). It works well
when the beam is operated in the linear regime. However,
when the beam deection is large, linearized model devi-
ates from the original nonlinear model signicantly
suggesting that nonlinear model-order reduction strategies
are required.
Recently, a complete theoretical framework was pre-
sented to enable a proper understanding and an accurate
simulation of the mechanical behavior of clamped-clamped
microbeam under electric actuation (Abdel-Rahman et al.
2002). The microbeam is modeled as a distributed-mass
structure bending under a generalized electric actuation
force and subject to mid-plane stretching and axial loading.
The equations are nondimensionalized and the design
parameters of the device are lumped into nondimensional
parameters. It was obtained that a macromodel for micro-
beam-based MEMS by discretizing the distributed
parameter system, using a Galerkin procedure, into a nite
degree or freedom system consisting of ordinary differential
equations for the time variable (Younis and Abdel-Rahman
2003). The analysis of MEMS was performed by using
radial basic function RBF) collocation method (Liu et al.
2005). Formulations for both static and dynamic analysis of
electrically actuated beams are derived. The spatial vari-
ables in the formulated model are approximated by the RBF
whilst the central difference scheme and Newmark scheme
are adopted to integrate the ordinary differential equations
with respect to time. The NewtonRaphson scheme is also
utilized to solve effectively the system of nonlinear equa-
tions resulting from the electric force. In addition, the
MEMS switch for these coupled-eld problems was simu-
lated using ANSYS (Zhu and Espinosa 2003), but the
precision of this method depends on computational grids or
meshes. Moreover, the meshing can occupy 6070% of the
time in analyzing process, this hinders their application to
high dimensional or geometrically complex problems.
The improved macromodel of the xed-xed micro-
beam-based of MEMS capacitive switch is developed to
predict their electromechanical behaviors of electrically
actuated MEMS capacitive switch in this paper. The
macromodel treats the MEMS devices as distributed
parameter systems and accounts for moderately large
deections, dynamic loads, axial stress induced by the
midplane stretching and the residual stress, and coupling
between the mechanical and electrical forces, and can
provide an effective and accurate design tool for this class
of MEMS devices. The numerical analysis of mechanical
characterizations of electrically actuated microbeam-based
MEMS capacitive switch are performed by the nite ele-
ment Newmark method, and the performances of static and
dynamic of MEMS capacitive switch are obtained. The
numerical results show that, with only a few nodes used in
the computation, the FEM Newmark gives the identical
results to other numerical methods.
2 Governing equation
A typical capacitive MEMS switch consists of a xed-xed
thin metallic microbeam which is suspended over a bottom
electrode insulated by a dielectric lm, as illustrated in
Fig. 1. This dielectric lm serves to prevent the electric
short between two conductors and provides a low imped-
ance path for the RF signal. When the switch is not
actuated, there is low capacitance between the microbeam
and the bottom electrode, and the switch is in the OFF
state. When voltage is applied between the movable
microbeam and the xed bottom electrode, electrostatic
charges are induced on both the movable microbeam and
the bottom electrode. The electrostatic charges cause a
distributed electrostatic force, which deforms the movable
microbeam. In turn, such deformation leads to storage of
elastic energy, which tries to restore structure to its original
shape. The microbeam deformation also results in the
reorganization of all surface charges on the device. This
reorganization of charges causes further structural defor-
mation, therefore the devices exhibits a highly nonlinear
and coupled electromechanical behavior. Until a certain
voltage is applied, the so-called pull-down voltage, an
equilibrium position exists through a balance between the
elastic restoring force and electrostatic force. After pull-
down, the microbeam collapses and makes a contact with
the dielectric layer. The device is in the ON state, and its
capacitance is much larger than that in the OFF state.
Fig. 1 The structure model of
MEMS capacitive switch a Top
view, b Schematic model of
xed-xed microbeam
302 Microsyst Technol (2009) 15:301307
123
Therefore, the switch actuation is a multiphysical cou-
pled-eld problem of electrostatics and structure response.
In order to accurately describe the switch deformation and
predict the pull-in voltage, it is necessary to take account
into some effects simultaneously including fringing eld
effect, midplane stretching effect and residual stress.
2.1 Fringing eld effect
Usually, the electric eld is assumed to be unaffected by
edge effects of the microbeam, i.e., the ux lines ow
parallel from one plate to the opposite one. Really, the
uniform electromagnetic eld cannot drop abrupt to zero at
membrane edges. The fringing eld always exists, as
illustrated in Fig. 2. Therefore, the fringing effect of the
electromagnetic eld must be taken into account for
MEMS capacitive switch in real situations, in case of nite
width b of the MEMS microbeam, the correction factor F
f
can be obtained according to (Huang et al. 2001):
F
f
0:65
g
0
w
b
1
2.2 Midplane stretching effect
The bending of a clamped-clamped microbeam generally
involves a stretching. When the maximum deection is less
than the thickness, small deection can be considered
valid, and the stretching can be ignored. But, for MEMS
capacitive switches, the original gap g
0
between two plates
is usually larger than the microbeam thickness t
0
, so that
the maximum deection at middle point is larger than t
0
.
Therefore, the axial stress induced by the elongation of the
movable microbeam has to be taken into account for more
accurate models. When a voltage is applied, the axial force
T resulted from the elongation of the clamped-clamped
microbeam is approximately given by:
T
Ebt
0
2L
_
l
0
ow
ox
_ _
2
dx 2
where x is the position along the microbeam, E is Youngs
modulus, t
0
, l, and b is the thickness, length and width of
microbeam, respectively.
2.3 Residual stress
Due to the mismatch of both thermal expansion coefcient
and crystal lattice period between substrate and microbeam
lm, residual stress is unavoidable in surface microma-
chining techniques, so that accurate and reliable data of
residual stress is crucial to the proper design of the MEMS
capacitive switch concerned with the techniques (Qian
et al. 2001). The residual force
^
Ninduced by the residual
stress corresponds to a tensile or compressive axial load,
depending on whether it is positive or negative and can be
expressed as:
^
N ^ rbt
0
3
where ^ r is the residual stress, equal to r
0
(1 - m) for the
clamped-clamped microbeam. r
0
and m is the biaxial
residual stress and the Poisson ration, respectively.
2.4 The coupled-eld problem formulation
For convenience, the switch deformation due to the elec-
trostatic force can be calculated following the theory of
plate and shells. The switch microbeam is a thin shell,
elastic, homogeneous and isotropic, from a mechanics
viewpoint. For the case of a capacitive coupling MEMS
switch, the deection is several times larger than the
thickness but the state of stress does not reach material
yielding. The nonlinear strain stiffening effect has to be
included. Therefore, the microbeam of MEMS capacitive
switch is modeled as a plate undergoing cylindrical bend-
ing under a applied load in this paper, which is uniform
along the width of the membrane(i.e., independent of y).
Moreover, the microbeam is clamped across its long ends
and free across its width. Therefore, we assume that the
transverse deection ^ wx; t of the plate is independent of
y. A uniform parallel electrode lying under the plate excites
it with a generalized electric force composed of a dc
component V
p
, and the microbeam subject to a viscous
damping ^ c per unit length. Following (Younis and Abdel-
Rahman 2002), the equation of motion that governs the
nonlinear transverse deection w(x, t) is written as
EI
o
4
^ w
o^ x
4
qbt
0
o
2
^ w
o
^
t
2
^ c
o^ w
o
^
t

EA
2l
_
l
0
d ^ w
d^ x
_ _
2
dx
^
N
_
_
_
_
o
2
^ w
o^ x
2

1
2
e
0
b
V
p
_ _
2
g
0
^ w
d
0
e
r
_ _
2
1 0:65
g
0
^ w
b
_ _
4
where A and I are the area and inertia moment of the cross
section, t is time, q is the material density of microbeam, d
0
is thickness of dielectric layer, e
0
and e
r
is the dielectric
constant of the air and dielectric layer, respectively. Where
the rst term on the right arises from the midplane Fig. 2 Electric eld distributions between two electrodes
Microsyst Technol (2009) 15:301307 303
123
stretching effect and residual stress, the second term
represents the parallel-pate electric force assuming
complete overlap area between the microbeam and the
stationary electrode and considering the fringing effect.
The boundary conditions are
^ w0;
^
t ^ wl;
^
t 0;
o^ w0;
^
t
o^ x

o^ wl;
^
t
o^ x
0 5
For convenience, the nondimensional variables are
introduce and denoted by no hats
w
^ w
g
0
; x
^ x
l
; t
^
t
T
; T

qbt
0
l
4
=EI
_
6
Substituting Eq. 6 into Eq. 4 and Eq. 5, and we obtain
o
4
w
ox
4

o
2
w
ot
2
c
ow
ot
a
1
Cw; w N
o
2
w
ox
2
a
2
V
p
_ _
2
1 w
d
0
g
0
e
r
_ _
2
1 0:65
g
0
1 w
b
_ _
7a
w0; t w1; t 0;
ow0; t
ox

ow1; t
ox
0 7b
where the nondimensional parameters and the functional C
in Eq. 7a are given by
c
^ cl
4
EIT
; a
1
6
g
0
t
0
_ _
2
; N
^
Nl
2
EI
; a
2

6e
0
l
4
Et
3
0
g
3
0
;
Cf
1
x; t; f
2
x; t
_
1
0
of
1
ox
of
2
ox
dx 8
3 Methods and discussion
The macromodel Eq. 7 describes the microbeam deection
under static loading. The implicit nature of the macromodel
precludes the impossibility of a closed-form solution, but
the partial-differential equation (PDF) can be solved
directly by many numerical methods. In this paper, the
FEM-Newmark method is employed to solve the coupled-
eld problem including structural and electrostatic domain
numerically. It is well known that solution can be drawn by
implementing a discretized continuous system model using
the FEM-Newmark method. The static response, natural
frequency and dynamic response of microbeam of MEMS
capacitive switch are investigated by this method. Table 1
lists the parameters of the coupled-eld MEMS capacitive
switch.
3.1 Static response of microbeam
To validate our results, we compare the results of the
maximum deection calculated using current approach to
those reported (Choi and Lovell 1997) based on above the
parameters of the coupled-eld MEMS capacitive switch
and no axial load, the static deection curve is displayed in
Fig. 3 where the applied voltages square vary from 0 to
70 V. It is obtained that the results from the two methods
are nearly undistinguishable, and there is good agreement
between the two sets of results. This indicates that our
method is valid and accurate. Moreover, as is shown in
Fig. 3, the nonlinearity caused by the electric force
increases rapidly on approaching pull-down status.
The pull-in voltages of microbeam for various a
1
are
investigated to study the inuence of the midplane
stretching effect on the static deection of microbeam and
the mechanical characterization of MEMS capacitive
switch. Figure 4 shows the variation of the pull-in voltage
with a
1
for l = 350 lm and N = 0. It is can be seen from
Fig. 4 that the pull-in voltage increases as the values of a
1
increases, this indicates that for same thickness of micro-
beam t
0
, the inuence of midplane stretching effect on pull-
Table 1 Physical and material properties of MEMS capacitive
switch
Physical and material properties Value
Length of microbeam l (lm) 400
Width of microbeam b (lm) 45
Thickness of microbeam t
0
(lm) 2
Initial gas of microbeam g
0
(lm) 1
Youngs modulus of microbeam E (GPa) 169
Poisson ration of microbeam m 0.22
Mass density q (kg/m
2
) 2,330
Thickness of dielectric layer d
0
(lm) 0.3
Dielectric constant of air e
0
(Farads/m) 8.854 9 10
-12
Relative dielectric constant of dielectric layer e
r
7.6
Fig. 3 Comparison of the maximum deection W
max
with two
different methods
304 Microsyst Technol (2009) 15:301307
123
in voltage is considerably signicant, moreover this
stretching effect gradually become strong as a
1
increase.
Therefore, the midplane stretching effect is ignored for
MEMS capacitive switches.
The maximum deections of microbeam for various N
are investigated to study the inuence of the residual stress
on the mechanical characterization of MEMS capacitive
switch. Figure 5 shows the variation of the maximum
deection with V
p
for various N, It is can be seen from
Fig. 5 that as the residual stress increases from a negative
values (compressive load) to positive values (tensile loads),
the level of the electrostatic force at pull-in increases,
moreover both the slope of the linear region and the cur-
vature of the nonlinear region decrease as the residual
stress increases. This indicates that the residual stress
contributes remarkably to pull-in voltage of MEMS
capacitive switch. The larger residual stress is, the larger
the pull-in voltage is. To valid current results, comparing
the maximum deection results calculated using current
approach to those reported by Abdel-Rahman et al. (2002)
is performed, there is good agreement between the two
results.
3.2 Natural frequency
Figure 6 shows the variation of the natural frequency of
microbeam for various V
p
and N = 0, the four natural fre-
quencies correspond to the rst four symmetric modes
calculated using the macromodel, respectively. The effect
of the electrostatic force in shifting the natural frequencies
can be clearly seen in Fig. 6, but the inuences are insig-
nicant. Moreover, as the modes increase the natural
frequency increases. This indicates that the coefcient of
the symmetric mode shape for MEMS capacitive switches
is a function of both the electrostatic force level and the
natural frequency and that the macromodel not suffer from
increasing stiffness as the actuation level approaches the
pull-in voltage. Therefore, for higher modes, the contri-
bution of the electrostatic force to the magnitude of the
coefcient becomes negligible, due to leading to smaller
shifts in the natural frequency as the electrostatic force
increases.
3.3 Dynamic response of microbeam
The electrostatic pull-down is a well-known phenomenon
in MEMS capacitive switches. In addition, if the applied
voltage is reduced after pull-down, the structure is released
at its release voltage. The release voltage differs from the
pull-down voltages by a small amount. The MEMS
Fig. 4 Variation of the pull-in voltage with a
1
for l = 350 lm and
N = 0
Fig. 5 Variation of the maximum deection W
max
with V
p
for various
residual stress N
Fig. 6 Variation of the natural frequency of microbeam for various
V
p
and N = 0
Microsyst Technol (2009) 15:301307 305
123
capacitive switches apply this characteristic to devices
between the two states. The pull-down voltage is dependent
on the structure geometry and material properties.
To predict the dynamic behavior of electrically actuated
MEMS capacitive switches, the dynamic response analysis
of microbeam of MEMS capacitive switch is carried out
under step voltage, and the various nonlinear behaviors are
investigated in the dynamic response of MEMS capacitive
switch. Figure 7 displays the deection curves with respect
to time at the midpoint of microbeam under voltages of 1, 2
and 3 V. As indicated before, the electrostatic force acts
like a negative nonlinear spring and the stiffness of the
system is amplitude dependent. As the applied step voltage
increases, the electrostatic force also increases in propor-
tion of V
p
2
, and thus causes the increase of deection. It is
can be easily seen from Fig. 7 that both the amplitude and
period increase as the applied step voltage increases. This
is in accordance with the results obtained by Shi et al.
(1996). Figure 8 shows the deection curve under the pull-
down voltage. It is can be easily seen from Fig. 8 that as
the applied step time increases, the deection also increa-
ses, moreover the pull-down time of 12 ls is obtained.
4 Conclusions
In this paper, numerical analysis of the mechanical char-
acterizations of electrically actuated MEMS capacitive
switches is carried out by nonlinear macromodel which
accounts for moderately large deections, fringing eld
effect, axial stress and residual stress, dynamic loads, and
coupling between the mechanical and electrical forces.
Based on the FEM-Newmark method, the mechanical
performances and response of the microbeam of MEMS
capacitive switches under step voltages have been ana-
lyzed. Nonlinear phenomena and pull-in effects of this
device, inuence of stretching effect and residual stress on
mechanical characterizations have been investigated. The
results agree quite well with the results from experimental
results and other numerical methods. In addition, nonlin-
earities in the systems and its coupling effects are easily
observed. The current method is straightforward to
implement and could save computation effort while not
losing accuracy. Therefore, we can utilize the model to
study the behavior of electrostatic resonators and pressure
sensors in the future.
Acknowledgments The work described in this paper was supported
by the Multidiscipline Scientic Research Foundation of Harbin
Institute of Technology (HIT MD. 2003.07), the Science and Tech-
nology Research Foundation of Education bureau of Heilongjiang
province, China (11511071), and the foundation of National Key
Laboratory of Millimeter Wave System, China.
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