Application of CAD tools for design and simulation of capacitive microaccelerometers

This paper demonstrates, how CAD design and simulation tools can assist in developing MEMS devices in general, and capacitive accelerometers in particular. Two types of surface-micromachined accelerometers are presented and described. The advantages and disadvantages of particular tools are discussed. The paper also includes sample simulation results, which prove that virtual simulations can provide the designer a lot of information with no need for device fabrication and measurements.