A CMOS z-axis capacitive accelerometer with comb-finger sensing

Author

Xie, Huikai ; Fedder, Gary K.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA

fYear

2000

fDate

23-27 Jan 2000

Firstpage

496

Lastpage

501

Abstract

This paper reports the first design and experimental results of a z-axis accelerometer that utilizes the sidewall capacitance change of multi-conductor comb fingers. The accelerometer has a fully differential capacitive bridge interface and its fabrication is compatible with standard CMOS processes. The frequency response of the accelerometer is characterized both electrically and optically and about 9.3 kHz resonant frequency is measured, which matches MEMCAD simulation within 15%. Measured sensitivity is 0.5 mV/g with less than -40 dB cross-axis sensitivity, noise floor 6 mg/rtHz, and linear range from -27 g to 27 g

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; accelerometers; capacitive sensors; frequency response; micromachining; microsensors; sensitivity; 9.3 kHz; CMOS capacitive accelerometer; comb-finger sensing; fabrication; frequency response; fully differential capacitive bridge interface; multiconductor comb fingers; sensitivity; sidewall capacitance change; standard CMOS processes; z-axis capacitive accelerometer; Accelerometers; Bridge circuits; CMOS process; Capacitance; Fingers; Frequency response; Optical device fabrication; Optical noise; Optical sensors; Resonant frequency;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2000. MEMS 2000. The Thirteenth Annual International Conference on

Conference_Location

Miyazaki

ISSN

1084-6999

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5273-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2000.838567

Filename

838567