A comparison of electrostatic and magnetic actuation for micromechanical systems

Summary form only given. Our work on integrated micromachined accelerometers has shown that for optimum performance it is necessary to run the accelerometers in a closed loop configuration. The use of such a closed loop system requires the incorporation of some form of actuator mechanism into the silicon micromachined device. In this paper we compare electrostatic and electromagnetic actuation which do not require the introduction of any 'non standard' CMOS materials into the fabrication process.