Effect of Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) on Heat Response Performance of NiCr Micro-heater

Abstract

The NiCr micro-heater is a key element of MEMS-based electro-explosive device (mEED), while electrostatic discharge (ESD) may excite the micro-heater accidentally. To discover mechanism that how the ESD excitations effect on heat response performance of NiCr micro-heater, electro-thermal conversion process was numerically modelled by using commercial software. Three different shapes of micro-heaters, including rectangular, V-shape and square ones, are designed, and a series of simulation models are built under ESD events of 25kV, 5000Ω, 500pF and 25kV, 500Ω, 150pF. Heat response performance of NiCr micro-heater with different shapes and sizes were numerically computed under the said ESD events and compared with. The critical safety value at which LTNR and copper azide would not be ignited accidentally were calculated according to the fitted formulas. Conclusions are that maximum temperature decreases exponentially with increase of width of rectangular micro-heater, decreases exponentially with increase of wm and α of V-shape micro-heater, and decreases exponentially with increase of length or width of square micro-heater. The ESD event of 25kV, 500Ω, 150pF is a more severe case for micro-heater than ESD event of 25kV, 5000Ω, 500pF. These results could supply critical data to guide the design of MEMS -based EED for ESD protection.