• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1994.11a
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• pp.416-418
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• 1994

In this study, a silicon piezoresistive accelerometer is designed and fabricated using $p^+$ etch stop layer. The accelerometer consists of a seismic mass and tour cantilevers, and is fabricated mainly by the anisotropic etching method using EPW as an etchant. Eight piezoresistors are properly arranged and connected to make a bridge circuit so that acceleration in only one direction may be measured. The etch stop method is adequate to the mass-production and the precise thickness control of the diaphragms as well, whet compared with the electrochemecal etch stop method.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.196-202
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• 2000

In this paper, we proposed the new bridge combination detection method for three dimensional piezoresistive silicon accelerometer, and the accelerometer with SOI structures was fabricated by bulk micromachining technology for using higher temperature than $200^{\circ}C$. The sensitivities of fabricated accelerometer for X, Y and Z-axis acceleration were about 8mV/V G, 8mV/V G and 40mV/V G. The nonlinearity of the output voltage was 1.6%FS and cross-axis sensitivity was within 4.6%. We confirmed that the three bridges detection method is very simple and the output characteristics of this accelerometer were similar to arithmetic circuit method accelerometer. The temperature characteristics of SOI structure accelerometer showed high operating temperature and good stability. And the temperature coefficient of offset voltage and sensitivity were $1033ppm^{\circ}C^{-1}$ and $1145ppm^{\circ}C$ respectively.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics D
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• v.36D no.7
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• pp.26-33
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• 1999

In order to examine the effect of beam location n the performance of bridge type piozoresistive silicon accelerometer, three sensors having different location of beams were simulated by FEN(finite element method) and fabricated by RIE(reactive ion etching) and KOH etching method using SDB(silicon direct bonding) wafer, Results of the FEM simulation present that the 1st resonace frequency and Z axis sensitivity of each sensor are identical but the 2nd, and the 3rd resonace frequency and X, Y axis sensitivity are different. Even though the 1st resonance frequency and Z axis sensitivity measured from fabricated sensors do not perfectly coincide with each other, all 3 type sensors present 180 ~ 220N/G of Z sensitivity at 5 V supply voltage and 1.3 ~ 1.7kHz of the 1st resonance frequency and about 2% of lateral sensitivity.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.101-109
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• 2004

This paper presents a novel z-axis accelerometer with perfectly aligned vertical combs fabricated using the extended sacrificial bulk micromachining (extended SBM) process. The z-axis accelerometer is fabricated using only one (111) SOI wafer and two photo masks without wafer bonding or CMP processes as used by other research efforts that involve vertical combs. In our process, there is no misalignment in lateral gap between the upper and lower comb electrodes, because all critical dimensions including lateral gaps are defined using only one mask. The fabricated accelerometer has the structure thickness of $30{\mu}m$, the vertical offset of $12{\mu}m$, and lateral gap between electrodes of $4{\mu}m$. Torsional springs and asymmetric proof mass produce a vertical displacement when an external z-axis acceleration is applied, and capacitance change due to the vertical displacement of the comb is detected by charge-to-voltage converter. The signal-to-noise ratio of the modulated and demodulated output signal is 80 dB and 76.5 dB, respectively. The noise equivalent input acceleration resolution of the modulated and demodulated output signal is calculated to be $500{\mu}g$ and $748{\mu}g$. The scale factor and linearity of the accelerometer are measured to be 1.1 mV/g and 1.18% FSO, respectively.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2187-2191
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• 2003

In this paper, a x/y-axis accelerometer is fabricated, using the SBM process on a <111> SOI wafer. This fabrication method solves the problem of the footing phenomenon in the conventional SOI process for improved manufacturability and performance. The roughened lower parts as well as the loose silicon fragments due to the footing phenomenon are removed by the alkaline lateral etching step of the SBM process. The fabricated accelerometer has a demodulated signal-to-noise ratio of 92 dB, when 40Hz, 5 g input acceleration is applied. The noise equivalent input acceleration resolution and bandwidth are $125.59\;{\mu}g$ and over 100 Hz, respectively. The acceleration random walk is $12.5\;{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$. The output linearity is measured to be 1.2 % FSO(Full Scale Output) at 40 Hz, and the input range is over ${\pm}\;10g$.

• Proceedings of the Optical Society of Korea Conference
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• 2001.08a
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• pp.140-141
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• 2001

No Abstract.See Full-text

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.1-8
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• 2012

This paper presents the accelerometer which is a key component of TPMS(Tire Pressure Monitoring System). Generally a piezoresistive accelerometer has characteristics of lower cost, better linearity and better immunity about the environmnet noise than a capacitive one. Three types of piezoresistive accelerometers are degined and simulated using ANSYS program. The best one is a piezoresistive sensor which is supported by four beams located at the center of the edge of the mass after comparing the characteristics of resonant frequency of the three types. Considering the sensor size and a simulated maximum stress and maximum displacement, the length of beams is set as $200{\mu}m$. The size of a piezoresistive accelerometer is $3.0mm{\times}3.0mm{\times}0.4mm$. The sensor output is characterized by measuring the output characteristic depending on angle. As a result the offset voltage of the accelerometer is 43.2 mV and its sensitivity is $42.5{\mu}V/V/g$. The temperature bias drift is measured. The shock durability of the sensor is 1500g and the measuring range is 0 ~ 60 g.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.36-42
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• 2001

This paper deals with finite element analyses of residual stresses causing popping up which are induced in micromachining processes of a microaccelerometer sensors. The paddle of the micro accelerometer sensor is designed symmetric with respect to the direction of the beam. After heating the tunnel gap up to 100 degree and get it through the cooling process and the additional beam up to 80 degree and get it through the cooling process. We learn the thermal internal stresses of each shape and compare the results with each other, after heating the tunnel gap up to 400 degree during the Pt deposition process. Finally we find the optimal shape which is able to minimize the internal stresses of microaccelerometer sensor. We want to seek after the real cause of this pop up phenomenon and diminish this by change manufacturing processes of microaccelerometer sensor by electrostatic force.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.53-58
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• 2001

This paper presents a high resolution capacitive microaccelerometer for applications to personal information systems. We reduce the mechanical noise level of the microaccelerometer by increasing the proof-mass based on deep RIE process. We reduce the electrical noise level by increasing the amplitude of an AC sense voltage. The high sense voltage is obtained by DC-to-DC voltage multiplier. In order to solve the nonlinearity problem caused by the high sense voltage, we modify the conventional comb electrode of straight finger type into that of branched finger type, resulting in self force-balancing effects for enhanced detection linearity. The proposed branched finger capacitive microaccelerometer was fabricated by the deep RIE process of an SOI wafer. The fabricated microaccelerometer reduces the electrical noise at the level of $2.4{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$ for the sense voltage of l6.5V, which is 10.1 times smaller than the electrical noise level of $24.3{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$ at 0.9V. For the sense voltage higher than 2V, the electrical noise level of the microaccelerometer became smaller than the constant mechanical noise level of $11{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$. Total noise level, including the electrical noise and the mechanical noise, has been measured as $9{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$ for the sense voltage of 16.5V, which is 3.2 times smaller than the total noise of $28.6{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$ for the sense voltage of 0.9V. The self force-balancing effect results in the increased stiffness of 1.98 N/m at the sense voltage of 17.8V, compared to the stiffness of 1.35 N/m at 0V, thereby generating the additional stiffness at the rate of $0.002N/m/V^{2}$.