Electrostatic behavior of MEMS capacitive pressure sensors with non-planar diaphragms under electrical loading

This paper discusses the study of the electrostatic behaviors of two non-planar structures of capacitive pressure sensor diaphragms under electrical loading without mechanical loads. This work deals with the simulation of the diaphragm structures using COVENTORWARE. Pull-in and release voltage, capacitance at pull-in, hysterisis phenomenon etc have been extracted from the simulations. Simulation results have shown that the single corrugated diaphragms can benefit from its greater working voltage, while the double corrugated diaphragms can only work on a much lower voltage. The single corrugated structure is also promising with its potential of high electrical sensitivity, while the double corrugated structure one is superior in the low-voltage application. In terms of hysterisis loss, the single corrugated diaphragm has been proved to have less hysterisis problem compared to the single corrugated diaphragm.