Micromachined inclinometer with high sensitivity and very good stability

Billat, S.; Glosch, H.; Kunze, M; Hedrich, F.; Frech, J.; Auber, J.; Sandmaier, H.; Wimmer, Werenfrid; Lang, Walter

doi:10.1016/s0924-4247(01)00824-x

Cited by 92 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Research efforts on thermal accelerometers have traditionally been initiated, justified and supported due to the potential for better reliability (there are no movable parts), better integration (fully compatible with IC fabrication processes) and stability [1][2][3]. Convective micro thermal-accelerometers were introduced in the 90's as an alternative to proof mass-based mechanical accelerometers and despite the claimed advantages, the success of these devices has been hampered by the relatively high power consumption (high thermal losses) and the difficulty to fabricate monolithically integrated 3-axis accelerometers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a 3-axis thermal accelerometer using an electro-thermo-fluidic model

Rocha¹,

Silva²,

Pontes³

et al. 2012

2012 13th International Thermal, Mechanical and Multi-Physics Simulation and Experiments in Microelectronics and Microsystems

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A three dimensional electro-thermal-fluidic FEM model is introduced in this paper and simulation results are used to design and predict the performance of a polymer based 3-axis thermal accelerometer. The model uses a sequential approach where initially the electro thermal model is simulated and the resulting temperature profile is used as input for a CFD simulation. Simulation results show that the required power to operate the sensor increases with the cross section of the heater and sensor sensitivity depends on the maximum temperature of the heater. Simulations using present sensor geometry show a sensitivity of 0.7°C/g in the X-Y directions and 0.3°C/g in the Z direction for a central heater temperature around 300°C.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a 3-axis thermal accelerometer using an electro-thermo-fluidic model

Rocha¹,

Silva²,

Pontes³

et al. 2012

2012 13th International Thermal, Mechanical and Multi-Physics Simulation and Experiments in Microelectronics and Microsystems

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show abstract

“…Many studies report the design and optimization of openloop convective accelerometers [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] but very few of them address the conditioning electronics as a solution to improve the system overall performance. In most of the previous works, an open-loop and continuous time read-out circuit is used on the basis of a simple instrumentation amplifier.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noise analysis of a first-order thermal ΣΔ architecture for convective accelerometers

Leman

Mailly

Latorre

et al. 2009

Analog Integr Circ Sig Process

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This paper presents the study of an original closed-loop conditioning approach for fully-integrated convective inertial sensors. The method is applied to an accelerometer manufactured on a standard CMOS technology using an auto-aligned bulk etching step. Using the thermal properties of the sensor, a first order sigma-delta modulator is built. This ''electro-physical'' modulator realizes an analog-to-digital conversion of the acceleration signal. Besides, the feedback mode of operation improves the sensor overall performance.

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“…In contrast, gas-pendulum type inclinometers are based on the principle of measuring thermal property changes of the sealed gas in the inclinometer cavity [8][9][10][11]. Dao filed this detection scheme as a US patent which utilized a suspended heating resistor and two symmetrical temperature detectors placed beside the resistor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The major advantage of the gas-pendulum type inclinometers is that they do not have moving part and can be fabricated using MEMS compatible fabrication processes. Micromachined inclinometer utilizing gas pendulum scheme has been demonstrated to have very high sensitivity of 0.003 • and the suspense microstructure can provide a shock survival up to 50,000 g [8,10]. Nevertheless, the linear range of the gas-pendulum design is small (±30 • ) and its performance may be sensitive to temperature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%