Design and finite element analysis of weighted-stiffness microelectromechanical digital-to-analogue converters

A microelectromechanical digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) based on the weighted-stiffness (WS) principle analogous to a weighted-resistor DAC for use in electronic circuits is proposed. To convert the digital voltage input to the analogue displacement, the stiffness of the vertical beams is employed as the scale factor. Finite element analysis and design optimisation are performed. Simulation shows that the error for the proposed DAC is less than 0.001 μm