Anti-stiction method for mems acceleration switch employing an additional mass structure

In this paper, we propose a novel method for MEMS acceleration switch employing an additional mass structure. The additional mass is constructed to provide additional restoring force to the proof mass. The additional mass pushes the proof mass back to its initial position when the stiction failure is occurred. The proposed method requires no additional fabrication steps nor deliberately induced electrostatic force to resolve the stiction failure. The proposed acceleration switch was fabricated through silicon-on-glass (SiOG) process. The operation voltage and the adhesive force between the proof mass and a contact anchor were measured to be 24 V and 25.1 μN, respectively by electrostatic operation test. To verify the anti-stiction capability of proposed method, the fabricated switch was electrostatically operated with or without providing the additional restoring force to the proof mass, respectively. It was observed from the results that the stiction is resolved by the additional mass structure.