A novel MEMS capacitive microphone using spring-type diaphragm

Microsystem Technologies - In this paper, we present a new design of diaphragm that supported by frog arms for MEMS capacitive microphone structure. The proposed diaphragm reduces the air damping...     

High sensitivity and small size MEMS capacitive microphone using a novel slotted diaphragm

A novel single-chip microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) capacitive microphone with a slotted diaphragm for sound sensing is developed to minimize the microphone size and improve the sensitivity by decreasing the mechanical stiffness of the diaphragm. The behaviors of the microphones with clamped and slotted diaphragms are analyzed using the finite element method (FEM). According to the results, a clamped microphone with a 2.43 × 2.43 mm² diaphragm and a slotted one with a 1.5 × 1.5 mm² diaphragm have the same mechanical sensitivity, but the size of slotted microphone is at least 1.62 times smaller than clamped structure. The results also yield a sensitivity of 5.33 × 10⁻⁶ pF/Pa for the clamped and 3.87 × 10⁻⁵ pF/Pa for the slotted microphone with a 0.5 × 0.5 mm² diaphragm. The sensitivity of the slotted diaphragm is increased 7.27 times. The pull-in voltage of the clamped microphone is 105 V, and slotted one is 49 V. The pull-in voltage of the slotted microphone is about 53% decreased.     

A silicon condenser microphone with structured back plate and silicon nitride membrane

The fabrication process of a silicon condenser microphone and experimental results of the acoustic measurements are described. The microphone consists of two chips. One chip carries the 150 nm thick silicon nitride membrane, which has an area of 0.8 mm × 0.8 mm. The second chip contains the back electrode, the spacer and the contact pads of the microphone. In order to reduce the streaming resistances in the air gap, the back-electrode area is either structured with grooves by a plasma etching technique or with holes by an anisotropic etching technique. A frequency-independent sensitivity of 10 mV/Pa (open circuit, 1.8 mV/Pa measured) up to 30 kHz is obtained as a result of this structuring of the back-electrode area. Since the air-gap height is only 2 μm, the capacitance of the transducers ranges from 1 to 1.3 pF. The total size of the silicon microphone is 1.6 mm × 2 mm × 0.56 mm.     

Numerical simulation and modelling of a novel MEMS capacitive accelerometer based microphone for fully implantable hearing aid

Microsystem Technologies - The present work proposes a novel MEMS capacitive accelerometer based microphone with enhanced sensitivity. The accelerometer design is simulated in COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS...     

A monolithic three-axis micro-g micromachined silicon capacitive accelerometer

A monolithic three-axis micro-g resolution silicon capacitive accelerometer system utilizing a combined surface and bulk micromachining technology is demonstrated. The accelerometer system consists of three individual single-axis accelerometers fabricated in a single substrate using a common fabrication process. All three devices have 475-/spl mu/m-thick silicon proof-mass, large area polysilicon sense/drive electrodes, and small sensing gap (<1.5 /spl mu/m) formed by a2004 sacrificial oxide layer. The fabricated accelerometer is 7/spl times/9 mm/sup 2/ in size, has 100 Hz bandwidth, >/spl sim/5 pF/g measured sensitivity and calculated sub-/spl mu/g//spl radic/Hz mechanical noise floor for all three axes. The total measured noise floor of the hybrid accelerometer assembled with a CMOS interface circuit is 1.60 /spl mu/g//spl radic/Hz (>1.5 kHz) and 1.08 /spl mu/g//spl radic/Hz (>600 Hz) for in-plane and out-of-plane devices, respectively.     

一种电压输出型CMOS集成电容湿度传感器

设计一种湿度传感器。该传感器选用聚酰亚胺作为湿度传感器的感湿介质,采用叉指电容式结构以增加感湿灵敏度,以电荷转移电路为微电容测量电路,用0.35μm多晶硅栅进行设计,形成单片集成湿度传感器。整个组成电路均与CMOS工艺兼容。仿真结果表明:在测量激励方波激励下,片上湿度传感器在27℃下模拟显示出较好的直流电压输出特性。     

基于厚膜混合集成的电容式加速度传感器

为了减小电容式加速度计的体积,提高检测精度、扩展应用范围,采用厚膜混合集成工艺,将检测电路和电容式加速度计敏感单元集成于一体。详细介绍了厚膜混合集成工艺的版图设计和制作过程,并介绍了制作工艺中的各道工序。用UP-16封装形式,对厚膜混合集成电容式加速度计进行了封装。经过与原电路比较后可知经厚膜混合集成后,体积大大减小,经封装后通过金属外壳接地,提高抗干扰能力,经测试,其测试精度能提高1—2个数量级。     

微机械加工硅电容式加速度传感器

介绍了硅电容式加速度传感器的工作原理和制作过程。传感器的敏感元件为一个差分电容器 ,它是由活动质量块与两个玻璃极板通过阳极键合形成。活动质量块用标准的双极工艺和各向异性腐蚀工艺制作。该传感器的量程为 2 0 gn,线性度为 10 -4 量级     

A high-sensitivity z-axis capacitive silicon microaccelerometerwith a torsional suspension

This paper presents a new z-axis high-sensitivity silicon-micromachined capacitive accelerometer fabricated using a three-mask dissolved-wafer process (DWP). It employs capacitive sensing using overlap-area variations between comb electrodes and a torsional suspension system to provide high sensitivity without compromising bandwidth, full-scale range, or the pull-in voltage ceiling. Excellent electrical sensitivity is obtained by using high-aspect-ratio comb fingers with narrow air gaps of 2 μm and a large overlap area of 12 μm ×300 μm. Torsional suspension beams 150 μm long with a cross-sectional area of 12 μm ×3 μm are used to improve the mechanical gain. Simulations of the capacitance between sense fingers show a highly linear region over a wide 14-μm tip deflection range. Accelerometers were fabricated and yielded sensitivities of 263-300 mV/g, a nonlinearity less than 0.2% over a range of -4 to +3 g, a full-scale range of -4 to +6 g, and pull-in voltages greater than 8 V. A 3 dB cutoff frequency of 35 Hz was measured in air. The calculated thermomechanical noise in the sensor is 0.28 mg over this bandwidth     

A monolithically integrated surface micromachined touch mode capacitive pressure sensor

A monolithically integrated surface micromachined touch mode capacitive pressure sensor and its interface circuits are presented. The device includes the capacitance to voltage, and capacitance to frequency converters on the same chip. The sensor is fabricated using a surface micromachining technology, which is processed simultaneously with a conventional 2.0-μm double-poly, double-metal n-well CMOS process. The performance of the integrated sensor meets the design specifications of good linearity and good stability. Evaluation results on the completed ‘sensor and circuit' chip are presented.     

A novel method to fabricate silicon nanoprobe array with ultra-sharp tip on (111) silicon wafer

Microsystem Technologies - In the work, a novel fabrication method for homogeneous and sharp nanoprobe array on (111) silicon wafer is presented. The specific spatial structure of {111} planes and...     

A silicon integrated opto-electro-mechanical displacement sensor

This paper describes a compact and low cost micro-opto-electro-mechanical displacement sensor. Our purpose is the fabrication of a long range, nanometer resolved encoder using a standard CMOS technology, in order to integrate the optical metrology system (photodiodes, analog and digital circuits) on a single chip. We introduce the interferometric linear encoder principle using diffraction gratings; then we present results of optical and electrical characterization of an optoASIC including photodiodes and associated electronic integrated on a standard 0.6 μm CMOS process. This CMOS circuitry is then included inside of a prototype of linear displacement encoder using the principle of diffraction gratings in reflection. Finally, we present the fabrication of micrometer and sub-micrometer diffraction gratings etched in silicon material, in order to obtain a higher encoder integration.     

A novel capacitive pressure sensor and interface circuitry

A novel capacitive pressure sensor with the island-notch structure is introduced. Its theory model is established based on the structure theory of the plate capacitive pressure sensor. The relationships between the external pressure and capacitance of the capacitive pressure sensor with the island-notch structure are studied by using the method of the finite element analysis (FEA). The results show that the linearity of the capacitive pressure sensor with island-notch structure reached up 0.9941 in the linear measurement zone, the sensitivity reached up 0.0019 pF/kPa, and the measurement range of the capacitive pressure sensor is enlarged. Thus, the contradictory among measure sensitivity, linearity and measure range is effectively relieved in the capacitive pressure sensors with island-notch. In addition, the interface circuitry of the charge transfer is designed, and the performance of the interface circuitry is analyzed.     

A novel high sensitive MEMS intraocular capacitive pressure sensor

This paper presents a novel high sensitive MEMS capacitive pressure sensor that can be used as a part of LC tank implant circuit for biomedical applications. The pressure sensor has been designed to measure pressures in the range of 0–60 mmHg that is in the range of intraocular pressure sensors. Intraocular pressure sensors are important in detection and treatment of an incurable disease called glaucoma. In this paper two methods are presented to improve the sensitivity of the capacitive pressure sensor. First low stress doped polysilicon material is used as a biocompatible material instead of p++silicon in previous work (Gu in Microfabrication of an intraocular pressure sensor, M.Sc Thesis, Michigan State University, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2005) and then some slots are added to the poly Si diaphragm. The novelty of this research relies on adding some slots on the sensor diaphragm to reduce the effect of residual stress and stiffness of diaphragm. The slotted diaphragm makes capacitive pressure sensor more sensitive that is more suitable for measuring intraocular pressure. The results yield a sensor sensitivity of 1.811 × 10^?5 for p++silicon clamped, 2.464 × 10^?5 1/Pa for polysilicon clamped and 1.13 × 10^?4 1/Pa for polysilicon slotted diaphragm. It can be seen that the sensitivity of the sensor with slotted poly Si diaphragm increased 6.2 times compared with previous work (clamped p++silicon diaphragm).     

A novel capacitive pressure sensor based on sandwich structures

This paper presents a sandwich structure for a capacitive pressure sensor. The sensor was fabricated by a simple three-mask process and sealed in vacuum by anodic bonding. The sensor, which utilizes a combined SiO/sub 2//Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ layers as the elastic dielectric layers, exhibits high sensitivity. Mechanical characteristics of the sensor are theoretically analyzed based on a composite membrane theory and evaluated by use of finite element analysis (FEA). Square membrane sensors with side lengths of 800 /spl mu/m, 1000 /spl mu/m, 1200 /spl mu/m, and 1500 /spl mu/m were fabricated, providing a measured sensitivity of 0.08 pF/kPa, 0.12 pF/kPa, 0.15 pF/kPa, and 0.2 pF/kPa, respectively. The nonlinearity of the sensor is less than 1.2% over a dynamic range 80-106 kPa and the maximum hysteresis is about 3.3% to the full scale capacitance change. The TCO at 101 kPa is 1923 ppm//spl deg/C. All the electrodes of the sensor are leaded from the top side of the chip. Residual pressure in the sealed cavity at room temperature is evaluated by a pressure scanning test, indicating about 8 kPa. Comparison of experimental results with theoretical analysis shows that change of capacitance for the sandwich structure under pressure is mainly due to variation of the dielectric constant while geometric variations such as the area change of electrodes and the thickness change of dielectric layers is about two orders less than the variation of the dielectric constant. Sensitivity enhancements for the sensor are qualitatively discussed based on the physical effects of strained dielectrics, including electrostriction and flexoelectricity. [1551].     

A novel DMTL capacitive switch with electrostatic actuation MAM capacitors

A novel DMTL capacitive switch with electrostatic actuation metal–air–metal (MAM) capacitors is presented. The top board of MAM capacitors will be pulled down together with the switch bridge. It has higher isolation in down-state than DMTL capacitive switch and has lower insert loss and higher self-actuation RF power comparing with MEMS shunt capacitive switch. Two of the novel DMTL capacitive switches are designed for high isolation and high self-actuation RF power, respectively. The calculated result shows that both of the two novel switches have lower insert loss than the MEMS shunt capacitive switch. The self-actuation RF power of them are 4 and 2.4 times that of MEMS shunt capacitive switch, respectively, at the cost of ?6.23 and ?3.54?dB reduction in isolation (30?GHz).     

Design and fabrication of silicon condenser microphone usingcorrugated diaphragm technique

A novel silicon condenser microphone with a corrugated diaphragm has been proposed, designed, fabricated and tested. The microphone is fabricated on a single wafer by use of silicon anisotropic etching and sacrificial layer etching techniques, so that no bonding techniques are required. The introduction of corrugations has greatly increased the mechanical sensitivities of the microphone diaphragms due to the reduction of the initial stress in the thin films, For the purpose of further decreasing the thin film stress, composite diaphragms consisting of multilayer (polySi/Si_xN_y/polySi) materials have been fabricated, reducing the initial stress to a much lower level of about 70 MPa in tension. Three types of corrugation placements and several corrugation depths in a diaphragm area of 1 mm² have been designed and fabricated. Microphones with flat frequency response between 100 Hz and 8~16 kHz and open-circuit sensitivities as high as 8.1~14.2 mV/Pa under the bias voltages of 10~25 V have been fabricated in a reproducible way. The experimental results proved that the corrugation technique is promising for silicon condenser microphone     

A novel substrate integrated waveguide equivalent inductive‐post filter

A novel substrate integrated waveguide equivalent inductive‐post filter is presented and optimally designed by HFSS and equivalent circuit method. The filter is fabricated with a standard low cost PCB process. Measured data are in agreement with the simulated results. Excellent performance in selectivity, out of band rejection and passband insertion loss are shown. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2008.