Currently, the design of new MEMS devices is born from knowledgeable engineers with a keen understanding of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and the limitations imposed by the manufacturing process. Key features in various successful designs have become the repertoire from which future MEMS devices are created. The complete design problem of making functional accelerometers requires many goals and constraints, including the details of the corresponding circuitry and the manufacturability constraints. In this research project, a design automation technique known as A-Design addresses a greater challenge. A-Design is an “invention machine” that has shown to create novel configurations for electromechanical design problems where a predetermined configuration is unknown. In this work, the computational technique develops new accelerometer configurations without prior knowledge of the ADXL configuration. While one can see obvious advantages of the ADXL design, it is possible that other, possibly better, configurations exist.
 

Download PDF