JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO.

3, JUNE 2013

755

A Single-Platform Simulation and Design Technique for CMOS-MEMS Based on a Circuit Simulator With Hardware Description Language
Toshifumi Konishi, Member, IEEE, Katsuyuki Machida, Member, IEEE, Satoshi Maruyama, Makoto Mita, Kazuya Masu, Member, IEEE, and Hiroshi Toshiyoshi, Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper presents a multiphysics simulation and layout design technique for complementary metaloxide semiconductormicroelectromechanical systems (MEMS) (CMOSMEMS) based on an electrical circuit simulator. An equivalent circuit model for the mechanical equation of motion has been translated into a Verilog-A-compatible hardware description language (HDL) in the Cadence Virtuoso environment to attain new designing capabilities such as automatic mask-layout synthesis, design rule check, and layout-versus-schematic verication for MEMS structures. Microelectromechanical components such as parallel-plate actuator and bending suspension, whose analytical equation models are already known, are also interpreted into HDL-coded equivalent circuits. Behavior of a MEMS device, including the electrostatic displacement hysteresis and the negative spring constant effect, is numerically simulated as a lumped massand-spring system, which has been veried to quantitatively agree with that of the corresponding analytical simulation results. A multiphysics model for the Colpitts oscillator circuit has been built in the developed simulation environment by replacing a quartz resonator with a compact model of an electrostatic silicon resonator, and its self-excited resonance has been conrmed by the simulation after the coordination of the device and circuit parameters. A prototype conversion tool for MEMS parameterized cell has also been developed to demonstrate automatic generation of mask layouts for a silicon resonator, which has been crosschecked against the experimental measurements to verify the simulation accuracy. [2012-0365] Index TermsComplementary metaloxidesemiconductor (CMOS)microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) (CMOSMEMS), equivalent circuit, hardware description language (HDL), mask layout, multiphysics simulation.

Fig. 1. MEMS design owchart based on mechanoelectric cosolver.

Manuscript received December 3, 2012; revised January 14, 2013; accepted January 15, 2013. Date of publication March 7, 2013; date of current version May 29, 2013. This work was supported in part by the Funding Program for Next Generation World-Leading Researchers under Grant ID GR024 and in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientic Research (B) of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under Grant 23360149. Subject Editor H. Zappe. T. Konishi and K. Machida are with NTT Advanced Technology Corporation, Atsugi 243-0124, Japan (e-mail: toshifumi.konishi@ntt-at.co.jp; katsuyuki.machida@ntt-at.co.jp). S. Maruyama and H. Toshiyoshi are with the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Meguro 153-8505, Japan (e-mail: satomaru@ iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp; hiro@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp). M. Mita is with the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara 229-8510, Japan (e-mail: mita@pub.isas.ac.jp). K. Masu is with Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama 226-8503, Japan (e-mail: masu.k.aa@m.titech.ac.jp). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/JMEMS.2013.2243111

I. I NTRODUCTION NTEGRATION of complementary metaloxide semiconductor (CMOS) and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology is thought to be an enabling power to deliver the More-than-Moore-type added values to the large-scale integration (LSI) electronics [1]. Owing to the technology development in the silicon micromachining in the past decades, various types of CMOS-MEMS integration process have been put into a practical use by employing the existing production lines [2], [3]. Regardless of the importance in comprehending the electromechanical behavior of a CMOSMEMS device, on the other hand, multiphysics simulation tools have been still in the development phase compared with the maturity of the computer-aided design tools for LSI. Methodology of MEMS development strongly depends on the integration scale of functional elements. Fig. 1 shows a typical owchart to design an electrostatic microactuator, where only mechanical deformation and electrostatic attraction force are involved. In such a simple case, a trial design of MEMS is created rst by using a mask-layout tool, and a corresponding 3-D mesh structure is built by extruding the 2-D patterns to the appropriate thicknesses. A data table of mechanical stressstrain is then prepared by using a numerical simulation tool based on the physical level nite-element method (FEM), for instance. At the same time, the identical mesh model is transferred to another simulation tool to prepare a lookup

1057-7157/$31.00 2013 IEEE

756

JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JUNE 2013

Fig. 3. Fig. 2. MEMS design owchart based on circuit simulator with HDL behavioral model.

MEMS design owchart of this work.

table of electrostatic capacitance under given mechanical deformation. These two sets of tables are cross-referenced by yet another tool (usually referred to as a cosolver) to iterate mechanoelectric simulation to nd mechanical deformation at the equilibrium condition under applied voltage. ANSYS Multiphysics [4], IntelliSuite [5], and the early version of MEMCAD [6] t into this cosolver approach. Transferring data between the simulation kernels is automatically handled in recent cosolver tools. Nonetheless, the protocol of such bottomup-type simulation is not straightforward because one needs to rebuild the data set all over again every time the MEMS dimensions are changed for trial. Moreover, a nodal analysis data set becomes very large particularly when simulation accuracy is pursued, and it costs a considerable computation resource to perform transient analysis. Comprehension of overall electromechanical system behavior including the electrical circuit is needed for recent integrated MEMS such as a silicon microphone with an amplier or RF-MEMS-tunable capacitors built in a voltage-controlled oscillator circuit. In the simulation methods using the FEMtype cosolvers [7], an electronic-le-based behavioral model is synthesized from the FEM simulation results and then referenced as a subcircuit macromodel in the electrical circuit simulator, as shown in Fig. 2. The model order reduction technique is also used to save computation time by extracting net-list parameters to create an equivalent circuit model for micromechanical components [8]. Several interface toolboxes have been developed for commercially available simulation software such as IntelliSuite with MATLAB Simulink [9]. However, the difculty still remains as before, because the simulations in different physical domains are performed on separate simulation platforms, and that the raw data sets should be prepared each time the photomasks are revised.

One may need to use the FEM-based simulation tool when parameters are not a priori known, such as the spring constant of a complex suspension and the damping coefcient of air around the vibrating body. FEM is also needed when one needs to study the oscillation modes of a distributed mass system. Once the appropriate analytical model has been found for such system, however, we would create a compact model to save the computational resource. A compact model is an equivalent circuit originally used to describe the transfer function of an electronic device by using an analytical equation, and it has been extended to streamline the MEMS design protocols; it also helps designers readily reason the consequence of changing design parameters [6]. Several methodologies to deal with multiphysics have been reported [10][12]. We also have developed simulation environments of MEMS based on the compact model approach that operates on a single platform of electrical simulator such as Qucs and LTspice to design a multiphysics system in a top-down manner [13], [14]; a MEMS microactuator or microsensor is represented by a lumped model using a nonlinear dependent current source described in an analytical equation model with a few design parameters and operation voltages. Owing to the single-platform environment, the system behavior of a MEMS device can be instantly calculated without passing through any data conversion tools. This feature is quite useful when one needs to repeat many cut-and-try cycles of parameter adjustment in both the mechanical and the electrical circuit designs. As an extension of the previous work, we have recently transplanted the multiphysics simulation kernel for MEMS into a Verilog-A-compatible hardware description language (HDL). The simulation operates in the single platform of the Cadence Virtuoso environment [15], which is commonly used by the analog/mixed-signal electronics engineers. As schematically shown in Fig. 3, mechanoelectric simulation and circuit simulation are processed simultaneously without transferring data

KONISHI et al.: SIMULATION AND DESIGN TECHNIQUE FOR CMOS-MEMS BASED ON A CIRCUIT SIMULATOR

757

viscoelastic force kx F2 = c x (2)

where the restoring force F2 has been set in the opposite direction from the electrostatic attractive force F1 . The relationship between F1 and F2 is calculated by the EOM as follows: mx +cx +kx= S 1 0 V2 2 (gini x)2 (3)

Fig. 4.

Analytical model for electrostatic parallel-plate actuator.

between solvers of different domains. The single-platform environment of Cadence Virtuoso allows us to have access to those powerful tools for LSI designing such as automatic mask layout using parameterized cell (PCell), design rule check (DRC), and layout-versus-schematic (LVS) verication. In this paper, we report the new scheme of the unied multiphysics simulation technique developed on the Cadence Virtuoso environment and present the Verilog-A version of the equation-of-motion (EOM) solver. We also demonstrate transient and ac harmonic analysis of electrostatic actuator/ resonator model using the developed simulation tools. As an example of PCell, we demonstrate automatic synthesis of layout patterns from the parametric simulation model of a silicon resonator. II. A NALYTICAL M ODEL FOR MEMS E LECTROSTATIC M ICROACTUATOR 1) Equivalent Circuit Model: Fig. 4 shows an analytical model for a parallel-plate electrostatic actuator. We use this simplied model to explain the procedure to construct the Verilog-A version of equivalent circuit. The bottom plate is a mechanically xed electrode, where a bias voltage V is applied through an electrical resistance R, while the upper electrode is suspended onto a mechanical anchor with a suspension of a spring constant k . The motion of the upper plate experiences a viscous damping represented by a dash pod of a coefcient c. The electrostatic attractive force acting on the plates is F1 = S 1 0 V2 2 (gini x)2 (1)

where m is the lumped mass of the movable upper plate. The distributed mass of the spring has been ignored. The analytical model has been translated into an equivalent circuit model in the Cadence Virtuoso environment as shown in Fig. 5 to nd a displacement value as a function of the applied voltage. Module I in Fig. 5 is a subcircuit model for the parallel-plate electrostatic actuator, and it has been designed to calculate the electrostatic force F1 as electrical current output as a function of drive voltage(s). Module II is for the viscoelastic suspension to calculate the restoring force F2 as current output. Module III, which has been inserted between the viscoelastic suspension and the electrostatic actuator, is the EOM cosolver to calculate the velocity and the displacement x as a function of the impinging electrostatic and restoring forces. Module IV is the mechanical anchor. Those subcircuit symbols IIV have been designed to visually represent the elements. 2) Verilog-A Expressions: We used Verilog-A, which is an HDL that can handle various mathematical operations, including derivation and integration as well as logical expressions such as an ifthenelse clause. It also has versatility of dening the input and output ports in either the electrical current and voltage modes. Apart from our previous publications, in which we used cascaded electrical capacitors to analog compute the second-order integral equation [13], Verilog-A description can be placed in a more straightforward manner by using mathematical expressions. For instance, electrical current I is written as a derivation equation of charge q as I = ddt(q ) (4)

where ddt is a mathematical function of Verilog-A for temporal differentiation, which is useful to describe a current owing in and out from an electrical capacitance. Also, integration is used to calculate mechanical displacement (as voltage V ) from velocity (as current i) as V = idt(i, ic, y ) (5)

where 0 = 8.85 1012 F/m is the dielectric constant of vacuum, S is the plate area, gini is the initial gap between the plates, and x is the displacement of the upper plate [16]. In this model, we ignored the electrical eld concentration on the edges of the plates but assumed the plate as a part of an innite plane. The plates position under the equilibrium condition at the differential voltage V is calculated by (1) with the mechanical

where idt is another Verilog-A function for temporal integration. Parameter y is a programmable logical condition to force the output value reset to ic when the conditional y is fullled. In this paper, we dene mechanical force and velocity as electrical current and voltage, respectively, following the analogy between mechanical and electrical systems [17]. The constant parameters such as the plate area S and the initial gap g are set in the SI units by using the Edit Object Properties dialog of Cadence Virtuoso, as can be seen in Fig. 5 inset.

758

JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JUNE 2013

Fig. 5. Screenshot image of equivalent circuit simulator. Mechanical elements are shown by subcircuits.

The electrical behavior of the actuator is described by variable capacitance, which is written in a plain text format as cv = ep S/ (gini V (x)) . (6)

Fig. 6. HDL equivalent circuit description for electrostatic parallel-plate actuator.

This expression is interpreted to an algebraic form of Cp = 0 S/(g x); note that the displacement x is read as voltage. Those parameters such as ep, S , and gini are passed to the module as an argument parameter; typical values used in this work are listed in Table I, including the material constants such as the dielectric constant of vacuum ep, Youngs modulus of single crystalline silicon Yg , and movable plate density of silicon dp . The damping coefcient c has been used as a tting parameter, which is tuned to deliver plausible values of oscillation amplitude at resonance. In the line next following the denition of the capacitance, we write V (Cp) <+ cv (7)

3) Electrostatic Actuator Module: Fig. 6 shows the electrostatic parallel-plate actuator model coded in the Verilog-A language, where the mass m of the plate is calculated by using the plate area S , thickness tp, and material density dp. The calculated value of m is displayed in the Edit Object Properties dialog as a read-only parameter and is automatically shared with the EOM module III by simply connecting the subcircuits.

to export the calculated value of cv into the output port Cp by using a Verilog-A operation symbol < +; this parameter Cp does not affect the subsequent calculation, but it is used as a reference for the neighborhood modules. Note again that the electrical capacitance value is read as voltage, even though it

KONISHI et al.: SIMULATION AND DESIGN TECHNIQUE FOR CMOS-MEMS BASED ON A CIRCUIT SIMULATOR

759

TABLE I M ECHANICAL AND E LECTRICAL PARAMETERS OF THE D EVICE U NDER T EST

has its own unit in farads, for we are only interested in the values of variables. In the same manner, the electrostatic force F1 dened by (1) is exported as electrical current as I (gnd, F ) <+ 0.5 ep S (V (V (V d) V (V b)) (V (V d) V (V b)) /(gini V (x)) / (gini V (x))

(8)
Fig. 7. HDL equivalent circuit description for the EOM solver.

where V d and V b are the potentials of the upper and the bottom plates, respectively. The expression may look lengthy because Verilog A does not use a mathematical symbol (hat) for powers, but it is reserved for the Boolean expression XOR. The electromechanical coupling within the tunable capacitor is expressed by the inductive charge associated to the time variation of the capacitance. The current owing in and out from the V d port is written as Id = (d/dt)Cp (Vd Vb ), which can be interpreted into Verilog A as I (V d, gnd) <+ ddt (cv (V (V d) V (V b))) . For the counterelectrode, on the other hand, we write I (V b, gnd) <+ ddt (cv (V (V b) V (V d))) (10) (9)

where the polarity of the differential voltage has been inverted. 4) EOM Module: Fig. 7 shows the Verilog-A implementation of the EOM module III programmed in 40 lines. The coding style is as readable as that of C language, and the codes are delimited into six blocks. The rst block (i) denes the initial conditions for the displacement (xini) and velocity (vini); these parameters are usually declared to be null in the Edit Object Properties dialog and then transferred to the local variables used in the following calculation blocks. In the second block (ii), the acceleration a is calculated from the net electrostatic attractive force and the restoring force, divided by the lumped mass m.

760

JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JUNE 2013

Fig. 9. Fig. 8. HDL equivalent circuit description for viscoelastic suspension.

HDL equivalent circuit description for mechanical anchor.

The velocity v is calculated by integrating the acceleration a in the third block (iii) by using the Verilog-A function idt and then read out from the output ports v 1 and v 2 as voltage. Block (iii) also has preceding lines with ifthen clauses, where a logical ag vi0integ is set to be one when the displacement x1 comes into contact with the mechanical stoppers at limit or limit_m on the positive and negative directions, respectively. When vi0integ is fullled to be one, the velocity is forced to be null by the conditional description in the idt function, and accordingly, displacement x1 remains at the stopper position. In a similar manner, the displacement is obtained by integrating the velocity; the value of v 1 is read as voltage, as described in block (iv). To avoid accumulative error in calculating the displacement, we force x1 at the stopper position either on the positive or negative side whenever it comes to the limit, as described in block (v). Finally, in block (vi), the resultant displacement x1 is exported to the output ports; the identical voltage value of x1 is provided to the output ports on both sides of the EOM module. 5) Viscoelastic Suspension Module: Fig. 8 is a program code for the viscoelastic suspension module (II). The sum of the elastic restoring force and the viscosity friction sampled on the left-hand side (connected to the anchor in Fig. 5) is interpreted into electrical current as I (gnd, F m1) <+ c (V (v 2) V (v 1))+ k (V (x2) V (x1)) (11) by using displacement x1 and x2 and velocity v 1 and v 2. This code is read in an algebraic form as Fm1 = c(v2 v1 ) + k (x2 x1 ). Those sufxes 1 and 2 refer to the ports connected to the left- and right-hand sides of the suspension module, respectively. The force acting on the right-hand side of the module (connected to the EOM) is programmed as I (gnd, F m2) <+ c (V (v 2) V (v 1)) k (V (x2) V (x1)) (12) which is a translation of Fm2 = c(v2 v1 ) k (x2 x1 ). Another four pins sp1 to sp4 are attached to the suspension module (II), as shown in Fig. 5, due to the inherent reasons of Cadence Virtuoso. They are not used for MEMS simulation but for the LVS processes to check the topological connection between the modules. A very small value of 106 is used for R12 connecting sp1 and sp2 and also for R34 connecting sp3 and sp4.

For a lumped-model spring represented by a bending beam model, we calculate the spring constant k of the viscoelastic suspension module (II) as follows: k = 4Yg wk tk lk
3

(13)

where Yg is Youngs modulus, wk is the spring width, tk is the spring thickness in the direction of bending, and lk is the spring length. These parameters can be typed in the Edit Object Properties dialog on the Cadence Virtuoso screen. The module is not limited to the bending beam but can be programmed to represent any types of suspensions so long as the analytical model of the spring constant is known as a lumped element. 6) Anchor Module: Finally, the mechanical anchor module (IV) is coded as shown in Fig. 9. Anchor module is used to give a mechanical constraint to the suspension by pulling down the displacement and velocity ports to null (GND). A virtual resistance of a nite value, i.e., 1 , is set between the GND and the anchoring port; this resistor does not affect the computation accuracy but is used due to the requirement of Verilog-A protocol. The resistor also works as a terminator for the suspension module, by draining the restoring force imprinted onto the electrical current. Similar to the suspension module, a virtual resistance Ranc of 106 is set between the additional ports anc1 and anc2 for the LVS processes. III. S IMULATION R ESULTS 1) Electrostatic Pull-in and Release Analysis: As a verication test against a theoretically known problem [16], we used the developed electrostatic parallel-plate model shown in Fig. 5 to demonstrate transient analysis under time-varying drive voltage. Fig. 10 shows the simulation results by using the parameters listed in Table I; the dashed line is the triangular drive voltage (swept up and down between 0 and 60 V in 1 s each), and the solid curves show the displacement of the movable plate. Unlike the previously reported equivalent circuit models for MEMS actuators [18], we do not use the linear approximation method but adopted a PC-based analog computing for the EOM in a form of an integral equation, which allows us to compute the nonlinear behavior of an electrostatic actuator. As predicted by the analytical model for the parallel-plate actuator, the displacement trips to the stopper position when the movable plate comes to the 2/3 of the initial gap, at a voltage

KONISHI et al.: SIMULATION AND DESIGN TECHNIQUE FOR CMOS-MEMS BASED ON A CIRCUIT SIMULATOR

761

Fig. 10. Transient analysis result of electrostatic parallel-plate actuator; displacement as a function of applied voltage.

Fig. 11. AC harmonic analysis result of electrostatic parallel-plate actuator; input reactance spectrum.

of 48.2 V, also known as the pull-in effect. Also, the complete hysteresis loop has been reproduced by simulation, including the release from the pull-in status and the subsequent damped oscillation. Simulation error has been quantitatively veried to match with the analytical static model (48.2 V). 2) Harmonic Analysis: Harmonic analysis of electromechanical behavior is also possible within the Cadence Virtuoso environment by using the identical simulation model (Fig. 5) and design parameters (Table I). The actuator model was considered as an electrical two-port resonator, and the input impedance was calculated by monitoring the electrical current through the device and the voltage across the ports. Fig. 11 shows the simulation results of electrical reactance, which is the imaginary part of the input impedance plot as a function of excitation frequency. A peak can be seen at the mechanical resonance of the modeled actuator, 347.5 kHz (bias voltage of 15 V), where the reactance component drastically changes from inductive to reactive around the resonance due to the phase shift of the mechanical oscillation with respect to the excitation voltage.

3) Transient and Harmonic Analysis of MEMS in Electrical Circuit: The developed compact model for a MEMS resonator has been inserted to replace a quartz resonator used in the Colpitts oscillator circuit to demonstrate the multiphysics simulation capability of MEMS with integrated circuits, as shown in Fig. 12, using those parameters listed in Table I. After the cutand-try cycles of parameter tuning, including the bias voltages to the transistor and MEMS, the circuit was found to start a stable oscillation at the resonant frequency of the MEMS, as shown in the transient simulation results in Fig. 13(a); the upper curve shows the output voltage tapped at a node between the load resistor and the transistor, and the lower the MEMS resonators mechanical amplitude (perpendicular to the substrate plane) in tens of nanometric range. A low-pass lter has been used at the bias voltage port of the actuator to round off the rising edge of the applied voltages at the beginning of the simulation, by which the sudden pull-in trip of the movable plate is avoided. The auxiliary ports on the suspension and the anchor modules are electrically connected to the bias port of the actuator to tell the LVS tool of Cadence that all the suspended structures are of equipotential. Using the built-in fast Fourier transform (FFT) function of the Cadence Virtuoso, we obtained the frequency spectrum of the oscillation, as shown in Fig. 13(b); the oscillation peak under a bias voltage of 15 V was calculated to be 319.2 kHz, which was 8% lower than the resonance under a bias voltage of 30 V, i.e., 347.5 kHz, due to the negative spring constant effect caused by the electrostatic attractive force of the bias voltage. In fact, silicon resonator can also be represented by a lumped linear LCR model by appropriately assigning the mass m, spring constant k , and damping factor c to electrical L, R, and 1/C , respectively [18]. However, an LCR model cannot deal with the nonlinear phenomenon such as the negative spring constant effect associated to the electrostatic mechanical coupling. At this moment, we did not seek for low-voltage operation of MEMS but demonstrated the simulation capability to nd appropriate design parameters for stable oscillation of an integrated MEMS circuit, which would have been difcult by the conventional numerical cosolver based on the 3-D mesh model because the numerical computation would have taken a considerably long time to perform. IV. AUTOMATIC M ASK -L AYOUT S YNTHESIS Automatic synthesis of photomask patterns is an advantage of using the Cadence Virtuoso environment as a multiphysics simulation platform for MEMS. In our simulation scheme, the detail mask layout is generated after the multiphysics simulation. However, it is important to predict the device footprint beforehand by using the PCell technique to foresee the cost per device and the electromechanical characteristics associated to the stray capacitance. We used the script language to correlate the schematic model of MEMS to a PCell to automatically generate corresponding mask-layout patterns of appropriate dimensions and layers for the oscillating mass, suspensions, and anchors. Detail descriptions of the converting program are to be reported elsewhere, but an example of pattern synthesis has been

762

JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JUNE 2013

Fig. 12. Screenshot image of transient analysis of electrostatic silicon resonator inserted in a Colpitts oscillation circuit.

Fig. 13. Transient analysis results of electrostatic silicon resonator inserted in Colpitts oscillation circuit. (a) Waveforms of plate displacement x and output voltage V d. (b) FFT analysis of the output voltage.

developed as shown in Fig. 14; only a part of the script code is shown, as it contains a total of more than 700 lines of codes, including parameter declaration, graphic drawing, and automatic correlation of schematics to cell. The master structure for the PCell has been prescribed in the program to be a plate with 2 2 release holes, supported with four sets of cantilevertype suspensions extending out in the horizontal directions, and anchored onto the substrate surface, as illustrated in Fig. 5 inset. The plate is assumed to vibrate in the out-of-plane direction as a rigid body, and the bumps located underneath the suspensions are the mechanical stoppers. Different from the nodal models [10], no air-damping model has been included yet, but a damping coefcient is used as a tting parameter in this work. The mechanical correspondence between the connected mass and suspension modules is known by the electrical connections set on the auxiliary ports of the developed simulation modules. The script language has been programmed such that the PCell dimensions for the structures could be picked up from the corresponding schematic modules designed with the parameters shown in Table I, and mask-layout patterns are generated as shown in Fig. 15. Simple DRC is also performed within the PCell to check, for instance, whether the plate dimensions would be large enough to accommodate the release holes. Owing to the PCell feature of Cadence Virtuoso, any change in parametric dimensions in the schematic model is instantly

reected to the PCell layout patterns without using extra converting tools. The generated mask patterns and design parameters have been transferred to the COMSOL Multiphysics simulator to cross-check the results. The electrostatic pull-in voltage was numerically solved to be 48.5 V by COMSOL, which had a good agreement with the result of this work, i.e., 48.2 V. Modal analysis of COMSOL, on the other hand, had found the resonant frequency of the out-of-plane oscillation at 288.8 kHz (with no bias voltage), as shown in Fig. 16; the resonant frequency predicted by the equivalent circuit model, i.e., 347.5 kHz, was 17% higher than the COMSOL result, most probably because no distributed mass of the suspensions was taken into account in our model but only the lumped mass of the movable upper plate is considered. The equivalent circuit model is to be improved to deliver more accurate result by using corrective coefcients in a similar way that a compact model for transistor uses many adjustment parameters to t the corresponding 3-D device model. V. D ISCUSSION 1) Comparison of Simulation Platforms: In our previous report, we presented multiphysics simulation methods by using other circuit simulator platforms of Qucs and LTspice [13],

KONISHI et al.: SIMULATION AND DESIGN TECHNIQUE FOR CMOS-MEMS BASED ON A CIRCUIT SIMULATOR

763

Fig. 16. COMSOL simulation results of modal analysis.

Fig. 14. Part of PCell script codes to automatically generate layout patterns for the viscoelastic suspension module.

Fig. 15. Automatically synthesized mask layout for the electrostatic silicon resonator. Dimensional parameters are used in the corresponding PCell script code.

[14]. As compared in Table II, they commonly use a solver for the EOM programmed as an analog computing circuit. The rst prototype simulator developed on Qucs describes the equivalent circuit models by using the programmable current source called equation-dened device (EDD) element that could be written in an algebraic or Boolean form as a function of input voltage(s); however, Qucs EDD can accept only voltage as input and generate current as output, which urges us to use extra circuit modules of current-controlled voltage source for variable conversion to cascade an EDD output to another. The second prototype implemented on the LTspice environment, on

the other hand, accepts either voltage or current as input to the LTspice version of EDD, also known as arbitrary behavioral voltage source (BV) and current source (BI). From a mathematical point of view, no temporaldifferential or integral operation is supported in Qucs, while such operation can be called by a dedicated function in the LTspice and Verilog-A environments, which allows us to program the code in a more readable style. As an overall evaluation, Verilog A is the most versatile to develop compact models using equations. Table III compares the different approaches for MEMS multiphysics simulation. In the conventional method (corresponding to the owcharts shown in Figs. 1 and 2), a macromodel for the micromechanical element is created by the FEM analysis such as ANSYS or COMSOL, and it is transferred as an electronic-le-based behavioral model to the circuit or system simulator such as Spice, SABER, and MATLAB to perform cosolving; this method is a very powerful tool to handle the multiphysics behavior of a distributed mass system of complex structures, but it requires computation labor because macromodels usually contain a large number of data points for nodal analysis. For a compact model method, on the other hand, one needs to dene the behavior of a MEMS element appropriately by using an equation before proceeding to the multiphysics simulation with electrical circuitry. Simulation results are not as accurate as that of the nodal analysis, due to a limited number of parameters used for simplied lumped analytical models. The compact analytical model presented in this paper is not intended to replace the FEM-based simulation methods or nodal analysis, but it should be used as a shortcut to reach the most probable simulation results once an appropriate analytical model is known, in a similar manner that LSI circuit is not usually put into a simulation tool based on the rst principle 3-D transistor model but designed with a higher level logic simulator. 2) Experimental Cross-Check: Simulation accuracy has been cross-checked with an experimental device, which is an electrostatic parallel-plate actuator (oscillator) shown in Fig. 17; this device was developed by the surface micromachining technology using electroplated gold as a structural layer. Fig. 18 shows the experimental and its tting simulation characteristics of the pull-in hysteresis as a function of applied

764

JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JUNE 2013

TABLE II C OMPARISON OF MEMS E QUIVALENT C IRCUIT M ODELING

TABLE III MEMS S IMULATION P LATFORMS

voltage and the electrostatic capacitance as a function of excitation frequency. The experimentally obtained pull-in voltage of 30.3 V was in good agreement with the theoretical value of 30.8 V, as shown in Fig. 18(b), which was calculated by the presented simulation method based on the following dimensions extracted from the photomask design parameters and material properties: lp = 300 m, wp = 300 m, ehl = 20 m, ehs = 20 m, ehc = 7 7 = 49, S = 7.04 108 m2 , tp = 3 m, dp = 19300 kg/m3 , m = 4.08 109 kg, gini = 3 m, lk = 131.5 m, wk = 20 m, wp = 20 m, tk = 3 m, Yg = 73 GPa, k = 74.1 N/m, c = 1.5 105 Pa s, limit = 1.8 m, limit_m = 1.8 m, ls = 20 m, and ws = 20 m. The viscosity coefcient c was used as a tting parameter to bring the theoretical results to t with the experimental behavior of the electromechanical transient response. The experimental resonant frequency of 21.2 kHz also exhibited a good agreement with the simulation value of 20.7 kHz. The equivalent

Fig. 17. SEM micrograph and design parameters of the measured electrostatic parallel-plate actuator.

KONISHI et al.: SIMULATION AND DESIGN TECHNIQUE FOR CMOS-MEMS BASED ON A CIRCUIT SIMULATOR

765

after the damped oscillation of the scanner [20]. The developed simulation platform is also good to comprehend the systemlevel behavior when MEMS elements are integrated in quantity such as an electrostatically addressable and latchable multislit shutter array [21]. MEMS designers would appreciate the short computation time particularly when repeating the simulation to seek for a speculative draft version of parameters in the feasibility study phase. For this reason, we propose the use of compact-model-based multiphysics simulation to do a rough sketch of a CMOS-MEMS before giving a nal touch on the mask layout by using the FEM simulation models. VI. C ONCLUSION We have developed a novel multiphysics simulation and design technique for CMOS-MEMS based on an electrical circuit simulator with a Verilog-A-compatible HDL in the Cadence Virtuoso environment. The EOM for mechanical behavior has been implemented as an equivalent circuit in an analog-computation style such that electromechanical motion can be cosolved with electrical circuitry on a single platform without transferring FEM-generated data set between different simulation tools. An electrostatic MEMS resonator has been modeled within the developed simulation platform to show the multiphysics handling capability for the microelectromechanical behavior and the electrical transistor circuit. A prototype PCell has also been developed to demonstrate automatic masklayout synthesis of a simple MEMS resonator. Extension modules are under development for DRC and LVS functions within the Virtuoso environment. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Dr. T. Maruno, Dr. Y. Akatsu, M. Yano, K. Kudo, and T. Matsushima of NTT Advanced Technology Corporation for the technical discussions. They would also like to thank Prof. H. Ito and Prof. N. Ishihara of the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Prof. H. Fujita of the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, for the useful discussion and suggestions regarding the verication of simulation accuracy. R EFERENCES
[1] Technol. Working Group Rep., International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, Jan. 2011. [Online]. Available: http://www.itrs.net/ Links/2011ITRS/Home2011.htm [2] E. Ogawa, T. Ikehashi, T. Saito, H. Yamazaki, K. Masunishi, Y. Tomizawa, T. Ohguro, Y. Sugizaki, Y. Toyoshima, and H. Shibata, A creep-immune electrostatic actuator for RF-MEMS tunable capacitor, Sens. Actuators A, Phys., vol. 169, no. 2, pp. 373377, Oct. 2011. [3] J. L. Steyn, T. Brosnihan, J. Fijol, J. Gandhi, N. Hagood, IV, M. Halfman, S. Lewis, R. Payne, and J. Wu, A MEMS digital microshutter (DMS) for low-power high brightness displays, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Opt. MEMS Nanophoton., Sapporo, Japan, Aug. 912, 2010, pp. 7374. [4] M. Gyimesi, I. Avdeev, and D. Ostergaard, Finite-element simulation of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) by strongly coupled electromechanical transducers, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 557 560, Mar. 2004. [5] G. B. Chong, K. S. Hoon, I. H. Jafri, and D. J. Keating, Simulations based design for a large displacement electrostatically actuated microrelay, Analog Integr. Circuits Signal Process., vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 3746, Jul. 2002.

Fig. 18. Simulation and experimental results of the actual electrostatic parallel-plate actuator. (a) Capacitance-versus-drive-voltage curve. (b) Capacitance-versus-frequency characteristics.

circuit model was tuned to t the frequency response of the capacitance, as shown in Fig. 18(b), by inserting a parasitic capacitor in parallel with the MEMS actuator and by using a value of 265 fF as a tting parameter. With this proportion of suspension length with respect to the meshed mass, the device can be well represented by a lumped mass model. The validity of compact model has also been cross-checked with other MEMS devices of mechanical rotational systems. A resonant-type optical MEMS scanner with the electrostatic vertical comb-drive actuator has been analytically studied to produce an equation-dened compact model, and its resonant amplitude behavior to the pulsewidth-modulated voltage has been reproduced by simulation [19]; this study has been performed to produce a driver circuit for the ber optic endoscope with a MEMS spatial modulator. A semiparallel-plate electrostatic torsion mirror for a variable optical attenuator application has also been studied by this simulation method to predict the voltage waveform appropriate to minimize the settling time

766

JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JUNE 2013

[6] S. D. Senturia, Simulation and design of microsystems: A 10-year perspective, Sens. Actuators A, Phys., vol. 67, no. 13, pp. 17, May 1998. [7] M. Niessner, G. Schrag, J. Iannacci, and G. Wachutka, Experimentally validated and automatically generated multi-energy domain coupled model of a RF-MEMS switch, in Proc. 10th Int. Conf. EuroSimE, Delft, The Netherlands, Apr. 2629, 2009, pp. 16. [8] L. D. Tin, J. Iannacci, R. Gaddi, A. Gnudi, E. B. Rudnyi, A. Greiner, and J. G. Korvink, Non linear compact modeling of RF-MEMS switches by means of model order reduction, in Proc. 14th Int. Conf. TRANSDUCERS, Lyon, France, Jun. 1014, 2007, pp. 635638. [9] IntelliSense Corp., [Online]. Available: http://www.intellisense.com/ MEMS-SoC/MEMS-SoC.html [10] J. E. Vandemeer, M. S. Kranz, and G. K. Fedder, Hierarchical representation and simulation of micromachined inertial sensors, in Proc. Int. Conf. MSM , Santa Clara, CA, Apr. 68, 1998, pp. 540545. [11] J. V. Clark and K. S. J. Pister, Modeling, simulation, and verication of an advanced micromirror using SUGAR, J. Microelectromech. Syst., vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 15241536, Dec. 2007. [12] G. Schropfer, G. Lorenz, S. Rouvillois, and S. Breit, Novel 3-D modeling methods for virtual fabrication and EDA compatible design of MEMS via parametric libraries, J. Micromech. Microeng., vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 064003-1064003-15, Jun. 2010. [13] M. Mita, S. Maruyama, Y. Yi, K. Takahashi, H. Fujita, and H. Toshiyoshi, Multi-physics analysis for micro electromechanical systems based on electrical circuit simulator, IEEJ Trans. Elect. Electron. Eng., vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 180189, Mar. 2011. [14] T. Konishi, S. Maruyama, T. Matsushima, M. Mita, K. Machida, N. Ishihara, K. Masu, H. Fujita, and H. Toshiyoshi, A SPICE-based multi-physics seamless simulation platform for CMOS-MEMS, in Proc. Int. Conf. SSDM , Tokyo, Japan, Sep. 2224, 2010, G-6-5. [15] Cadence Design Systems, Inc., [Online]. Available: http://www.cadence. com/products/cic/pages/default.aspx [16] Y. B. Gianchandani, O. Tabata, and H. Zappe, Comprehensive Microsystems, vol. 2. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier, 2008, pp. 138. [17] R. A. Johnson, Mechanical Filters in Electronics. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley, 1983. [18] Y. Nishimori, H. Ooiso, S. Mochizuki, N. Fujiwara, T. Tsuchiya, and G. Hashiguchi, A multiple degrees of freedom equivalent circuit for a comb-drive actuator, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., vol. 48, no. 12, pp. 124504-1 124504-7, Dec. 2009. [19] S. Maruyama, M. Nakada, M. Mita, T. Takahashi, H. Fujita, and H. Toshiyoshi, An equivalent circuit model for vertical comb drive MEMS optical scanner controlled by pulse width modulation, IEEJ Trans. Sensors Micromach., vol. 132, no. 1, pp. 19, Jan. 2012. [20] S. Maruyama, M. Mita, K. Isamoto, C. Chong, H. Fujita, and H. Toshiyoshi, An equivalent circuit model for semi-parallel plate electrostatic torsion mirror, IEEJ Trans. Sensors Micromach., vol. 132, no. 4, pp. 7785, Apr. 2012. [21] T. Takahashi, M. Mita, K. Motohara, N. Kobayashi, H. Fujita, and H. Toshiyoshi, Electrostatically addressable visored shutter array by electroplating for astronomical spectrography, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Opt. MEMS Nanophoton., Istanbul, Turkey, Aug. 811, 2011, pp. 7980.

Katsuyuki Machida (M99) was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954. He received the B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. Engineering degrees from Kyushu Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu, Japan, in 1979, 1981, and 1995, respectively. In 1981, he joined the Musashino Electrical Communications Laboratory, NTT Advanced Technology, Musashino, Japan, where he was engaged in research on electron-cyclotron-resonance plasma chemical vapor deposition and the development of large-scale integration (LSI) processes and manufacturing technologies. Since 1995, he has been engaged in ngerprint sensor LSI and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices and fabrication process as the integrated complementary metaloxidesemiconductor (CMOS)-MEMS technology. Also, he proposed the spin coating lm transfer and hot pressing technology as the advanced lm formation technology with LSI and MEMS fabrication. He is currently an Executive Engineer with the Nano-Technology Business Unit, Advanced Products Business Headquarters, NTT Advanced Technology Corporation, Atsugi, Japan. He is currently managing the business and development of material and manufacturing technologies for the integrated CMOS-MEMS devices. Since 2010, he has been a Visiting Professor in the Department of Electronics and Applied Physics, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan. Dr. Machida was the recipient of the 2004 Computer Security Symposium Best Paper Award, the Micro Nano Conference 2006 Most Impressive Presentation Award, the 2006 Institute of Electronics, Information, and Communication Engineers Best Paper Award, and the 2009 Integrated MEMS Symposium Best Paper Award.

Satoshi Maruyama received the B.S. degree in electronic engineering from Gunma University, Maebashi, Japan, in 2008 and the M.E. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from The University of Tokyo, Meguro, Japan, in 2010, where he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in multiphysics simulation for microelectromechanical systems.

Toshifumi Konishi (M12) was born in Kagawa, Japan, in 1976. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in nuclear engineering from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, in 1999 and 2001, respectively. In 2001, he joined NTT Advanced Technology, Mitaka, Japan. Since then, he has been engaged in developing optical-ber-type devices and measurement systems. He is currently an Engineer with NTT Advanced Technology Corporation, Atsugi, Japan, and he is currently engaged in research and development of multiphysics simulation in conventional circuit simulators for integrated complementary metaloxidesemiconductor microelectromechanical systems (MEMS); various MEMS devices, including optical MEMS and RF-MEMS devices; electrical circuit design such as sensor large-scale integrations; and measurement systems for MEMS devices. Mr. Konishi is a member of the Japan Society of Applied Physics and the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.

Makoto Mita received the B.E. degree from Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from The University of Tokyo, Meguro, Japan, in 1999 and 2002, respectively. Since 2003, he has been an Assistant Professor with the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, Japan. His research interests include microelectromechanical systems for space applications and nanomechatronics.

KONISHI et al.: SIMULATION AND DESIGN TECHNIQUE FOR CMOS-MEMS BASED ON A CIRCUIT SIMULATOR

767

Kazuya Masu (M91) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electronics engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan, in 1977, 1979, and 1982, respectively. In 1982, he joined the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. Since 2000, he has been with the Precision and Intelligence Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he is currently a Professor in the Solutions Research Laboratory and also serves as the Director of the ICE Cube Center. He was a Visiting Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA, in 2002 and 2005. His current interests are scalable and recongurable RF complementary metaloxidesemiconductor circuit technology, design environment of integration with diverse functionalities, and circuit and system implementation for swarm electronics. Dr. Masu is a Fellow of the Japan Society of Applied Physics and the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. He is a member of the Institute of Electronics, Information, and Communication Engineers, Japan Institute of Electronics Packaging, and Japan Management of Technology Society.

Hiroshi Toshiyoshi (M97) received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from The University of Tokyo, Meguro, Japan, in 1993 and 1996, respectively. From 1999 to 2001, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. In 2002, he became an Assistant Professor with the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo. From 2002 to 2007, he was a Codirector of LIMMS/CNRS-IIS UMI-2820, an international joint laboratory of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientique, Paris, France. From 2005 to 2008, he was the Project Leader of the Optomechatronics Project at Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology, Kawasaki, Japan. Since May 2009, he has been a Professor with the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo. His research interests include optical and RF microelectromechanical systems.