Friction and wear have become more and more important with device scaling down. To eliminate friction and wear, this thesis presents a micromachined inductive suspension with 3D wirebonded microcoils. Experimental results show that the 3D suspensions have significantly improved performance compared to the reported 2D suspensions: better linear control, higher levitation height, less current consumption and lower device temperature. The thesis also demonstrates the potential of new applications of inductive suspensions integrated with electrostatic actuation. This comprehensive study gives important guidelines for the further integration of the suspension into other microsystems.
