Validation of simulation platform for modeling of RF MEMS contacts

Fabienne Pennec (1) , David Peyrou (1) , Hikmat Achkar (1) , Patrick Pons (1) , Robert Plana (1) , Frédéric Courtade (2)

1 LAAS-MINC - Équipe MIcro et Nanosystèmes pour les Communications sans fil
2 CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse]

For the DC contact RF MEMS, it has been identified that most of the limitations are related to the quality and the repeatability of the contact that drive the RF performances and the reliability. In order to propose new generation of RF MEMS devices, it is important to get a deeper insight on the physic of contact in order to choose appropriate materials. As part of our study on the electrical contacts of RF MEMS micro switches, the need of multiphysics software offering a well developed solver to simulate many mechanical contact problems coupled with other physics, with a reduced time of calculation and good accuracy on the results is under investigation. As a first step, we need to validate the results of the numerical platforms existing in our laboratory. To do so, a static Hertz contact problem is simulated using ANSYS 10 and COMSOL 3.3 and we compared the results of the simulation with the analytical model. The second step consists of comparing the capabilities of each software to model interaction between objects and solve a variety of contact problems. Then we compare the facilities for the user to fit the contact parameters in the model in order to obtain an accurate solution of our problem. This study permits us to choose the software the most efficient for our application. The accuracy of ANSYS, the various methods available to solve the wide variety of contact problems and with a minimum effort from the user, makes of ANSYS's solver an excellent candidate to be used in our project. Especially, the real topography of the contact surfaces can be included in finite element simulations.

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

Fabienne Pennec, David Peyrou, Hikmat Achkar, Patrick Pons, Robert Plana, et al.. Validation of simulation platform for modeling of RF MEMS contacts. 8th. World Congress on Computational Mechanics (WCCM8) and 5th. European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering (ECCOMAS 2008), Jun 2008, Venise, Italy. 2p. ⟨hal-00395331⟩