A Methodology For The Simulation Of MEMS Spiral Inductances Used As Magnetic Sensors

S. Druart, D. Flandre, and L.A. Francis
Université catholique de Louvain - ICTEAM, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Published in 2010

In this paper, a methodology to simulate the electric behavior of spiral inductances is presented and discussed. All the methodology is built with the COMSOL software used with the Matlab scripting interface and then allows performing fully parameterized simulations. The program architecture is explained and is used to simulate two applications. The first calculates the voltage induced by an external AC magnetic field. The second is to detect the presence of moving metallic particles of micrometric dimensions; the program thus extracts the varying inductances values. The final goal of this approach is to manufacture sensors in MEMS technologies and co-integrate them with CMOS circuits.