MEMS System-Level Modeling and Simulation in Smart Systems

MEMS are miniaturized sensors or actuators and are essential to enabling “smart systems” to interact with their physical environment. These devices add the “ears,” “eyes,” “noses,” and “touch” to these systems. The system-level modeling of MEMS requires considering not only the multi-physical behavior of these devices but also their electronic readout circuitry and packaging. This chapter describes a methodology for MEMS system-level design and its implementation in commercially available software. We introduce the Coventor MEMS+® environment for creating system-aware MEMS models, an approach based on a library of 3-D, high-order parametric finite elements. Model-order reduction techniques are employed to reduce the complexity of the multi degree-of-freedom models, to speed up simulation time and to provide a path for designing MEMS together with electronic hardware. The influence of the package surrounding the MEMS device can be simulated by combining traditional finite element simulations with the new methodology of MEMS+. Finally, we discuss the virtual co-development of embedded software and MEMS hardware.