Development of Dual Axis MEMS Accelerometer Based On SOI-MUMPs Using CoventorWare

The mathematical modeling, design, and simulation for a 2-axis MEMS accelerometer, using a crab-legged suspension structure are presented in this paper. The accelerometer is designed according to the SOI MUMPs fabrication technology which utilizes silicon on insulator wafer. CoventorWare software is used to construct and simulate the crab-legged accelerometer device to obtain its natural frequency. The mathematical modeling was calculated using MATLAB based on the proposed parameters. The main design parameter of the MEMS accelerometer is the natural frequency which was found to be 1483 Hz from CoventorWare and calculated by the mathematical model and found to be 1419 Hz with an error of 4%. The accelerometer’s sensitivity is 4.71E-17 F/g which is equivalent to 0.013 µ m/g sensitivity in distance change. Keeping in consideration that the beams’ stiffness is calculated and found to be K
x
=1.1 N/m, and K
y
=0.33 N/m, the presented design allowed the accelerometer to have a measuring range of motion up to 3.7 g (36 m/s
²
).