US – Page 462 – TechConnect Briefs

Calculation of the AC Electroquasistatic Sinusoidal Steady-State Coulomb Force on a Conductor Coated with a Lossy Dielectric

Osterberg P., Inan A., University of Portland, US

The ability to directly calculate the analytical closed-form electroquasistatic sinusoidal steady-state Coulomb force (or ac force) exerted on a conductor coated with a lossy dielectric in the presence of a second grounded conductor and excited [...]

Torsional Ratcheting Actuating System

Barnes S.M., Miller S.L., Rodgers M.S., Bitsie F., Sandia National Laboratories, US

A new type of surface micromachined ratcheting actuation system has been developed at the Microelectronics Development Laboratory at Sandia National Laboratories. The actuator uses a torsional electrostatic comb drive that is coupled to an external [...]

Topics in Finite-Element Modeling of Piezoelectric MEMS Devices

von Preissig F.J., Kim E.S., University of Hawaii at Manoa, US

Techniques for modeling thin-piezoelectric MEMS devices using existing finite-element packages are examined. The emphasis is on non-resonant sensors and actuators, but most results are applicable to resonant devices and large structures as well. Characteristic features [...]

Design, Simulation and Fabrication of a Bridge Structure Microtransducer

Zanga M., Zurn S.M., Polla D.L., Nelson B.J., Robbins W.P., University of Minnesota, US

ANSYS simulation of a variety of microtransducers was performed. The results indicate that a bridge structure is an optimal design for a microtransducer. Simulation of a bridge structure PZT thin film microtransducer was verified by [...]

Modeling of Acoustic-Structural Coupling in a MEMS Hydrophone

Johnson H.T., Prevot L., Boston University, US

The coupling of acoustics and structural dynamics is of primary importance in the design of MEMS based microphones for use in liquid environments. A three-dimensional finite element study of acoustic-structural coupling is presented here for [...]

Vision-based Extraction of Geometry and Forces from Fabricated Micro Devices

Wang X., Ananthasuresh G.K., Ostrowski J.P., University of Pennsylvania, US

In the field of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), there are often times when a model derived directly from the microstructure of a fabricated device would be useful. In our research, the image of the structure is [...]

Finite-Element Modeling of 3C-SiC Membranes

DeAnna R.G., Mitchell J., Zorman C.A., Mehregany M., U.S. Army Research Laboratory, US

Finite-element modeling (FEM) of 3C-SiC thin-film membranes on Si substrates was used to determine the residual stress and center deflection with applied pressure. The anisotropic, three-dimensional model includes the entire 3C-SiC membrane and Si substrate [...]

Hardware Realization of Biological Mechanisms Using VHDL and FPGAs

Botros N., Akaaboune M., Alghazo J., Alhreish M., Southern Illinois University, US

In this paper we present a hardware realization of a simplified blood-pressure regulation mechanism. The mechanism has been proposed and then modeled by using Hardware Description Language (VHDL). After verifying the simulation results, Computer Aided [...]

Compact Models for Smart Pixels with Smart Illumination

Subramanian Y., Azadeh M., Darling R.B., University of Washington, US

Smart Pixels with Smart Illumination (SPSI) is a recently developed technology that enables the monolithic integration of two functionalities-optical illumination and detection- into arrays of optoelectronic ‘pixels’ in a compact and robust manner. To facilitate [...]

A Synthesizable Low Power VHDL Model of the Exact Solution of Three Dimensional Hyperbolic Positioning System

Bucher R., Misra D., New Jersey Center for Wireless and Telecommunication, US

This paper presents a synthesizable low power VHDL model of a three-dimensional hyperbolic positioning system algorithm. The algorithm derives the equations needed to obtain an exact solution for the three dimensional location of a mobile [...]