• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.520-528
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• 2001

This paper investigates a resonant microaccelerometer that measures acceleration using a built-in micromechanical resonator, whose resonant frequency is changed by the acceleration-induced axial force. A set of design equations for the resonant microaccelerometer has been developed, including analytic formulae for resonant frequency, sensitivity, nonlinearity and maximum stress. On this basis, the sizes of the accelerometer are designed for the sensitivity of 10$^3$Hz/g in the detection range of 5g, while satisfying the conditions for the maximum nonlinearity of 5%, the minimum shock endurance of 100g and the size constraints placed by microfabrication process. A set of the resonant accelerometers has been fabricated by the combined use of bulk-micromachining and surface-micromachining techniques. From a static test of the cantilever beam resonant accelerometer, a frequency shift of 860Hz has been measured for the proof-mass deflection of 4.3${\pm}$0.5$\mu\textrm{m}$; thereby resulting in the detection sensitivity of 1.10${\times}$10$^3$Hz/g. Uncertainty analysis of the resonant frequency output has been performed to identify important issues involved in the design, fabrication and testing of the resonant accelerometer.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.9-15
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• 1996

A silicon microaccelerometer is designed and fabricated using silicon epitaxial layers for automotive electronic airbag applications. A cantilever structure is chosen for high sensitivity and piezoresistive detection method is adopted for circuit simplicity and low cost. An optimum design is used to find optimum microstructure sizes for maximum sensitivity subject to performance requirements and design constraints on natural frequency, damping ratio, maximum allowable stress and microfabrication limitations. The microaccelerometer is fabricated by micromachining processing steps, composed of material-selective and orientation-dependent chemical etching techniques. Fabricated prototype shows a sensitivity of 88.6$\mu\textrm{V}$/g within a resonant frequency of 1.75KHz. Estimated performance of the microaccelerometer is compared with measured one. Discrepancy between the theoretical values and the experimental values is discussed together with possible sources of the errors.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.529-536
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• 2001

We investigate a surface-micromachined capacitive accelerometer with the grid-type electrodes surrounded by a perforated proof-mass frame. An electromechanical analysis of the microaccelerometer has been performed to obtain analytical formulae for natural frequency and output sensitivity response estimation. A set of prototype devices has been designed and fabricated based on a 4-mask surface-micromachining process. The resonant frequency of 5.8$\pm$0.17kHz and the detection sensitivity of 0.28$\pm$0.03mV/g have been measured from the fabricated devices. The parasitic capacitance of the detection circuit with a charge amplifier has been measured as 3.34$\pm$1.16pF. From the uncertainty analysis, we find that the major uncertainty in the natural frequency of the accelerometer comes from the micromachining error in the beam width patterning process. The major source of the sensitivity uncertainty includes uncertainty of the parasitic capacitance, the inter-electrode gap and the resonant frequency, contributing to the overall sensitivity uncertainty in the portions of 75%, 14% and 11%, respectively.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.408-413
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• 1996

A self-diagnostic, air-damped, piezoresitive, cantilever-beam microaccelerometer has been designed, fabricated and tested for applications to automotive electronic airbag systems. A skew-symmetric proof-mass has been designed for self-diagnostic capability and zero transverse sensitivity. Two kinds of multi-step anisotropic etching processes are developed for beam thickness control and fillet-rounding formation, UV-curing paste has been used for sillicon-to-glass bounding. The resonant frequency of 2.07kHz has been measured from the fabricated devices. The sensitivity of 195 $\mu{V}$/g is obtained with a nonlinearity of 4% over $\pm$50g ranges. Flat amplitude response and frequency-proportional phase response have been obserbed, It is shown that the design and fabricaiton methods developed in the present study yield a simple, practical and effective mean for improving the performance, reliability as well as the reproducibility of the accelerometers.