A dual axis accelerometer utilizing low doped silicon thermistor

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a dual axis convective microaccelerometer, whose working principle is based on the convective heat transfer and thermo-resistive effect of lightly-doped silicon. Different with developed convective accelerometer, the sensor utilizes a novel structure of the sensing element which can reduce 93% of thermal-induced stress. Moreover, the thermistors are made from low-doped p-type silicon, which has the TCR higher than that of metals and poly-silicon convective accelerometer. By using numerical method, the chip dimensions and the package size arc optimized. The sensitivity of the sensor was simulated; other characteristics such as frequency response, shock resistance, noise problem are also deeply investigated. The sensor has been fabricated by MEMS process and characterized by experiments.