Application of Higher Order Sensitivity FE Method for Parametric MEMS Design

Modeling and simulation is an important step of the MEMS design. The simulation of MEMS components consist of several iteration levels. The physical behavior of threedimensional continuums is described by partial differential equations which are typically solved by Finite Element (FE) methods. The method allows taking into account the complex geometry and interactions among different physical domains to obtain static, modal, frequency and transient responses. Simulations provide a deep understanding of the device behavior and lead to systems with optimized performance parameters. Drawback of existing FE techniques is that those algorithms can only analyze a single model configuration with specified dimensions and physical parameters. The application of Higher-Order Sensitivity (HOS) analysis to FE equations as a way to increase the efficiency and robustness was started in the 1990s. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the viability of the HOS method in terms of memory requirement, computational efficiency and accuracy to parametric simulation of MEMS in the static, modal, frequency response domains on the basis of the structural analysis and macromodeling.