A Digital Output Piezoelectric Accelerometer using Pattenrned Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 Thin Films Electrically Connected in Series

We propose a digital output piezoelectric accelerometer for chicken health monitoring. The accelerometer has patterned Pb(Zr, Ti)O₃ (PZT) thin films electrically acc connected in series, which accompany CMOS switches. The elerometer converts acceleration into number of on-state CMOS switches, which can be called as "digital output". Since the accelerometer are based on piezoelectric effect, does not need voltage amplifier and A/D converter, ultra low power consumption is expected. We have fabricated the digital output piezoelectric accelerometer through sol-gel deposition of PZT thin films and MEMS micro fabrication process. The output voltage has increased with the number of connected PZT thin films, which indicate the potential to realize the proposed digital output piezoelectric accelerometer.