We have newly invented a micromechanism for precise position control, which
is equivalent to that of an electrical digital-to-analog converter(DAC) of
the R-2R resistor network. The micromechanical C-2C compliance suspension
network has been fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator wafer by a micromachi
ning technique. When N-bit digital driving voltages are applied to the micr
omechanism, cascaded electrostatic microactuators produce a set of displace
ments of +/-1 mu m. These displacements accumulate in the suspension networ
k with binary weights to synthesize DAC-like displacement output. A traveli
ng displacement of 6 mu m is obtained while the positioning resolution is 0
.38 mu m in the case of 4 bit input. Resolution can be improved further by
increasing the addressing size of the input.