High-level fault modeling in surface-micromachined MEMS

MEMS structures rendered defective by particles are modeled at the schemati c-level using existing models of fault-free MEMS primitives within the noda l simulator NODAS. We have compared the results of schematic-level fault si mulations with low-level finite element analysis (FEA) and demonstrated the efficacy of such an approach. Analysis shows that NODAS achieves a 60X spe edup over FEA with little accuracy loss in modeling defects caused by parti cles.