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Publications in Scientific Journals:

A. Camarda, G. Sordo, J. Iannacci, M. Schneider, U. Schmid, M. Tartagni, A. Romani:
"Fabrication and Electromechanical Modelling of a Flexural-Mode MEMS Piezoelectric Transformer in AlN";
Journal Of Microelectromechanical Systems, 26 (2017), 5; 1110 - 1121.



English abstract:
This paper presents the fabrication and electromechanical
characterization of a novel AlN-based microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) flexural-mode piezoelectric
transformer (PT) realized in a silicon-on-insulator bulkmicromachining
process with segmented electrodes at the secondary
side, which are series-connected in order to increase
the output voltage. The goal of this work is to propose a
MEMS-based alternative to inductors and magnetic transformers
for power management in micro-power mm-scale electronic
systems. The fabricated device is fully modeled by means of
the Butterworth-Van Dyke (BVD) two-port network. The device
is modeled analytically with the classic equations of a fully
clamped-edge membrane and through finite-element method
simulations. Characterization is performed through impedance
measurements and an alternative empirical method suitable for
MEMS devices is proposed for directly extracting its lumped
parameters electromechanical circuit. Finally, the effect of the
feed-through capacitance is fully analytically modeled, and this
paper presents a variant of the BVD network of the PT with
an inner BVD circuit, allowing an easier estimation of the
effects of the complex zeros introduced by the feed-forward
capacitance. The presented device achieves a measured maximum
voltage gain of 58mV/V at 􀀀 36.3 kHz and maximum efficiency
of ~75%.

German abstract:
This paper presents the fabrication and electromechanical
characterization of a novel AlN-based microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) flexural-mode piezoelectric
transformer (PT) realized in a silicon-on-insulator bulkmicromachining
process with segmented electrodes at the secondary
side, which are series-connected in order to increase
the output voltage. The goal of this work is to propose a
MEMS-based alternative to inductors and magnetic transformers
for power management in micro-power mm-scale electronic
systems. The fabricated device is fully modeled by means of
the Butterworth-Van Dyke (BVD) two-port network. The device
is modeled analytically with the classic equations of a fully
clamped-edge membrane and through finite-element method
simulations. Characterization is performed through impedance
measurements and an alternative empirical method suitable for
MEMS devices is proposed for directly extracting its lumped
parameters electromechanical circuit. Finally, the effect of the
feed-through capacitance is fully analytically modeled, and this
paper presents a variant of the BVD network of the PT with
an inner BVD circuit, allowing an easier estimation of the
effects of the complex zeros introduced by the feed-forward
capacitance. The presented device achieves a measured maximum
voltage gain of 58mV/V at 􀀀 36.3 kHz and maximum efficiency
of ~75%.


"Official" electronic version of the publication (accessed through its Digital Object Identifier - DOI)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JMEMS.2017.2709407


Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.