Build a miniature world
From the accelerometer that deploys the airbag in your car to the filter in your cellphone, micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS) are all around you and increasing in number. They are built to scales of a few microns or even less (the diameter of a human hair is about 100 microns) using semiconductor manufacturing processes. Of growing interest to sensor, actuator, and transducer design engineers, MEMS are welcomed for the new and exciting opportunities they offer. Unfortunately, today’s engineers with an eye on the MEMS of the future find market entry blocked by the significant investment in manufacturing equipment required. Unlike previous generations of inventors who could build and develop new devices in their garages on shoestring budgets, these designers are at a significant disadvantage compared with the large industrial corporations. Fortunately, PZFlex’s simulation capabilities extend to MEMS and support rapid virtual prototyping of a new design on a desktop PC in hours.

PZFlex dominates the market for the finite-element modeling of the capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT). a MEMS device used in medical ultrasound. CMUTs are collections of hundreds or thousands of ”drumheads” of silicon nitride, each often no more than a micron thick and 100 microns in diameter. The drumheads, which vibrate, can both transmit and receive sound waves for use in imaging and therapeutics. With an optional add-on to simulate electrostatic forces, geometrical and material nonlinearities, and material contact/impact forces, PZFlex permits rapid analysis of any new CMUT design. At the same time, all the standard advantages of PZFlex modeling apply, regarding size, speed, accuracy, and single-run broadband results.