Switching and release dynamics of an electrostatically actuated MEMS switch under the influence of squeeze-film damping

This paper reports analytical modeling, simulation and experimental validation for switching and release times of an electrostatically actuated micromachined switch. Presented work is an extension of our earlier work [1] that analytically argued, and numerically and experimentally demonstrated, why pull-in time is larger that pull-up time when the actuation voltage is less than twice of the pull-in voltage. In this paper, switching dynamics is investigated under the influence of squeeze-film damping. Tests were performed on SOI (silicon-on-insulator) based parallel beams structures.Typical voltage requirement for actuation is in the range of 10-30 V. All the experiments were performed in normal atmospheric pressure. Measurement results confirm that the quality factor Q has appreciable effect on the release time compared to the switching time. The quality factor Q is extracted from the response measurement and compared with the ANSYS simulation result. In addition, the dynamic pull-in effect has also been studied and reported in this paper. A contribution of this work includes the effect of various phenomena such as squeeze-film damping, dynamic pull-in, and frequency pull-in effects on the switching dynamics of a MEMS switch.