A Comprehensive High-Level Model for CMOS-MEMS Resonators

This paper presents a behavioral modeling technique for CMOS microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microresonators that enables simulation of an MEMS resonator model in Analog Hardware Description Language format within a system-level circuit simulation. A 100-kHz CMOS-MEMS resonant pressure sensor has been modeled into Verilog-A code and successfully simulated within Cadence framework. Analysis has shown that simulation results of the reported model are in agreement with the device characterization results. As an application of the proposed methodology, simulation and results of the model together with an integrated monolithic low-noise amplifier is exemplified for detecting the position change of the resonator.

I. Introduction

The significant growth we see today in the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensor market is fueled mainly by one thing: the increasing demand of wearables, human-interface devices (HID) and applications by the end consumer. Besides the main design driving forces of size and integration, typical of the wearable market [1] (smart watches, mobile phones, smart rings, etc.), the time-to-market has become a critical engineering factor. As engineers are pushed towards shorter and shorter design cycles, quick design simulation and verification is a key factor.