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Vacuum Packaged Low-Power Resonant MEMS Strain Sensor

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Do, CD 
Erbes, A 
Yan, J 
Soga, K 

Abstract

This paper describes a technical approach toward the realization of a low-power temperature-compensated micromachined resonant strain sensor. The sensor design is based on two identical and orthogonally-oriented resonators where the differential frequency is utilized to provide an output proportional to the applied strain with temperature compensation achieved to first order. Interface circuits comprising of two front-end oscillators, a mixer, and low-pass filter are designed and fabricated in a standard 0.35-μm CMOS process. The characterized devices demonstrate a scale factor of 2.8 Hz/με over a strain range of 1000 με with excellent linearity over the measurement range. The compensated frequency drift due to temperature is reduced to 4% of the uncompensated value through this scheme. The total continuous power consumption of the strain sensor is 3 μW from a 1.2 V supply. This low power implementation is essential to enable battery-powered or energy harvesting enabled monitoring applications.

Description

Keywords

MEMS resonator, resonant sensor, oscillator, MEMS-CMOS interface, temperature compensation

Journal Title

Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1057-7157
1941-0158

Volume Title

25

Publisher

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K000314/1)
This work was supported in part by the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under Grant EP/K000314/1 and in part by the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction.