Implementation of a monolithic single proof-mass tri-axis accelerometer using CMOS-MEMS technique

Abstract

This paper presents a novel single proof-mass tri-axis capacitive type complementary metal oxide semiconductor-microelectromechanical system accelerometer to reduce the footprint of the chip. A serpentine out-of-plane (Z-axis) spring is designed to reduce cross-axis sensitivity. The tri-axis accelerometer has been successfully implemented using the TSMC 2P4M process and in-house postprocessing. The die size of this accelerometer chip containing the MEMS structure and sensing circuits is 1.78 \times 1.38 mm, a reduction of nearly 50% in chip size. Within the measurement range of 0.8 \sim 6G, the tri-axis accelerometer sensitivities (nonlinearity) of each direction are 0.53 mV/G (2.64%) for the X-axis, 0.28 mV/G (3.15%) for the Y-axis, and 0.2 mV/G (3.36%) for the Z-axis, respectively. In addition, the cross-axis sensitivities of these three axes range from 1% to 8.3% for the same measurement range. The noise floors in each direction are 120 mG/rtHz for the X-axis, 271 mG/rtHz for the Y-axis, and 357 mG/rtHz for the Z-axis. © 2006 IEEE.