• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.18-24
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• 2011

This paper presents that the yield strength of the pressure sensor with a double boss diaphragm structure can be improved as the grooves are formed at the corner of the diaphragm bridge. Generally the boss structure is widely used for the low-pressure sensor, of which the sensitivity is not enough in case of the small diaphragm size limited by a chip size constraint. The double boss structure pressure sensor exhibits a great sensitivity, but suffers from the low yield strength problem due to the high stress occurred at the corner of the diaphragm bridge to be limited in the operating range. ANSYS simulation is performed by changing the length of the groove from 0.5${\mu}m$ to 10${\mu}m$ at the corner of the diaphragm bridge of the double boss structure pressure sensor. The maximum stress is analyzed at the corner of the diaphragm bridge, the edge of the diaphragm bridge, and the position of the piezoresistive sensor. Consequently, in case the length of the groove from the edge of the diaphragm is 6${\mu}m$ or greater, the stress occurred in the corner of the bridge is less than the stress acting on a piezoresistive element.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.126-131
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• 2007

In this paper, we fabricated piezoresistive pressure sensor with dry etching technology which used ICP-RIE (inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching) and etching delay technology which used SOI (silicon-on-insulator). Structure of the fabricated pressure sensor shows a square diaphragm connected to a frame which was vertically fabricated by dry etching process and a single-element four-terminal gauge arranged at diaphragm edge. Sensitivity of the fabricated sensor was about 3.5 mV/V kPa at 1 kPa full-scale. Measurable resolution of the sensor was not exceeding 20 Pa. The nonlinearity of the fabricated pressure sensor was less than 0.5 %F.S.O. at 1 kPa full-scale.