Thermal effects in integrated piezoresistive MEMS pressure sensor may be a problem of concern in design for applications requiring high precision measurements and in continuously monitoring array of sensor network. It not only results in the shift of the offset voltage of the pressure sensor but also affects the performance of the adjacent CMOS circuit leading to erroneous values. To address th...

As a highly sensitive strain gauge element, GaAs-based resonant tunneling diode (RTD) has already been applied in microelectromechanical system (MEMS) sensors. Due to poor mechanical properties and high cost, GaAs-based material has been limited in applications as the substrate for MEMS. In this work, we present a method to fabricate the GaAs-based RTD on Si substrate. From the experimental res...

This paper is about designing a silicon based piezoresistive micro pressure sensor for greater sensitivity. Using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) the role played by important design parameters like the side length and the thickness of the pressure sensing membrane in determining the sensitivity of the sensor are studied in detail for a pressure of 100 kPa. The fracture stress of silicon is adopte...

In this paper, a pressure sensor for low pressure detection (0.5 kPa-40 kPa) is proposed. In one structure (No. 1), the silicon membrane is partly etched to form a crossed beam on its top for stress concentration. An aluminum layer is also deposited as part of the beam. Four piezoresistors are fabricated. Two are located at the two ends of the beam. The other two are located at the membrane per...

We present a chemical gas sensor based on a resonating cantilever beam in CMOS MEMS technology. The sensor is actuated employing electrothermal actuation. Thus, for a 300 μ m long beam vibration amplitudes of 6.5 nm per mW heating power are achieved. The vibrations are detected with piezoresistors in a Wheatstone bridge scheme. Detection sensitivities above 200 μ V per mW heating power are meas...

This work focuses on the proof-mass mechanical structural design improvement of a tri-axial piezoresistive accelerometer specifically designed for head injuries monitoring where medium-G impacts are common; for example, in sports such as racing cars or American Football. The device requires the highest sensitivity achievable with a single proof-mass approach, and a very low error (<1%) as the a...