Prediction and compensation of reference voltage shift in IC sensors due to mechanical stress

With the continuing miniaturization and integration of sensors challenges besides the scaling of the sensor itself arise especially for high precision measurements. Here the problem often lies in the growing impact of environmental influences compared to the smaller usable signals. In this talk the challenge of obtaining online high precision voltage measurements in the automotive environment using only ICs is discussed. The focus is set on the impact of mechanical stress on the reference voltage circuit needed to convert the analogue sensor signal into digital data. An approach of combining results of specialized measurement equipment to determine the expected use case specific stress influence with FEA and circuit simulations to develop a stress resilient on-chip voltage reference is presented.