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Continued demand for flexible and sophisticated, yet lightweight and low power as well as small, systems is being
satisfied by advances in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). These advances require use of computational
modeling and simulation accompanied by physical measurements. Successful combination of computer aided design
(CAD) and multiphysics simulation tools with the state-of-the-art (SOTA) measurement methodology will contribute to
reduction of high prototyping costs, long product development cycles, and time-to-market pressures while developing
MEMS for a multitude of increasingly diversified applications. In one approach a unique, fully integrated, software
environment for multiscale, multiphysics, high fidelity modeling of MEMS is combined with the SOTA optoelectronic
laser interferometric microscope (OELIM) methodology for measurements. The OELIM methodology allows remote,
noninvasive, full-field-of-view (FFV) measurements of displacements/deformations and vibrations with high spatial
resolution, nanometer accuracy, and in near real-time. In this paper, an approach - employing both, the modeling
environment (including an analytical process used to quantitatively show the influence that various parameters defining a
microstructure, e.g., RF MEMS, a microswitch, or a sensor, may have on its dynamics; using this process dynamic
characteristics of a device/sensor can be optimized by constraining its nominal dimensions and finding the optimum set
of uncertainties/tolerances in these dimensions) and the OELIM methodology - is described and its applications are
illustrated with representative examples. The examples reveal viability of the approach, combining measurements and
modeling (i.e., M&M), for the development of MEMS. The representative results demonstrate capacity of the M&M
approach to quantitative determination of the effects of dynamic operational loads on performance of selected
microstructures of current interest.
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