¡@¡@Accompanying with the development of MEMS technology, microstages have been used for many years. Most of the studies on microstages have been aimed at the application of new actuators, materials and fabrication process in recent years. However, the systematic way for designing new microstages with the mechanism conceptual design approach still needs some more input. ¡@¡@The objective of this study is to establish a methodology to design new microstages employing the concept of mechanism design. First of all, new microstages for microassembly have been analyzed according to the basic requirements from the mechanism. Afterwards, the concept of microjoint has been presented and used in the synthesis of microstages. Besides, a flow chart of design procedure has been presented and seven kinds of microstages are achieved accordingly. Finally, the FEM simulation of the synthesized microstage illustrates the desirable results that reveal the good agreement with the expected motion. It is shown that this study can be efficiency applied to the design of micro scale devices.

In the field of MEMS technology, all kinds of actuators are often regarded as the force source. However, some designs of actuators have good precision in position; the working distance to be driven is too short. Therefore, the actuator is often combined with a mechanism with displacement amplify function. The objective of this study is to synthesize the new pantograph mechanism using the concept of mechanism design according to the desirable motion and the requirement of the actuator. The cases of single degree-of-freedom and two degree-of-freedom are assumed simultaneously for the output of the basic design constraints so as to generate new pantograph mechanisms from the catalogue of kinematic chains. The suitable pantographs are then found out with the features such as: (1) single level plane using comb driver, (2) using compliant mechanisms as joints, and (3) suitable for MUMPs process. These constraints of design are considered as the procedures of process design, compliant mechanisms transformation, compliant joints design, actuator configurations design, FEM dynamic analysis and joint modifications. Finally, prototypes are evaluated and transform into planar micro compliant pantographs. Moreover, a test and a discussion of the displacement error are done under the consideration of the designed mechanism actuating using FEM analysis. The percentage of displacement error of planar micro compliant pantograph is defined, and the equation for estimating the percentage of displacement error is proposed so as to modify the motion error for controlling.