In addition to pressu re senso rs for engine cont rol and accelerometers for airbag sys tems , yaw rate sensors and gyros are foreseen as a recent automo tive challen ge fo r MEMS based components . Such devic es , when using co riolis forces as a sensing prin ciple , lead to extremely complex sys tem design . Th e moving structure has to be rotationally exc ited and tightly co ntrolled . Th en , the structure tilt , indu ced by the co riolis force, has to be sim ultaneo usly measur ed . The simultaneo us sensi ng and actuation can, in theor y quit e easily be created with capacitive electro-mechanical struc tures and switched-capacitor based sig nal con ditioning circuits. But in practice, the strong interactions between the two pa rts of the device makes such a system extremely difficult to understand , ana lyse and ultimately, to successfully design . Al so, produ cts using these device s may combine num erous analog/mixe d sig nal microelectronics blocks and MEMS functions on a single chip o r on two or mo re chips asse mbled within an integrated package , complicating the analysis . This paper will demonstrat e a design methodology and tools that enable mechanical and electronic engineers to efficie ntly model, sim ulate and design such syste ms . This int egrated solution for the developm ent of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS ) combines aspec ts of electronic design automation wi th mechanical , the rma l, and f1 uidic computeraided design , and allows the complex interactions and multiph ysical beha viour of automotive senso rs to be captured and analyzed.In the tools, system design ers create a mixed technology schematic using build ing blocks. Each of these bricks encapsulates a behav iour al model , w ritten in HDL-A S.

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