A high precision MEMS based capacitive accelerometer for seismic measurements

In this paper, we present a capacitive, MEMS based accelerometer comprising an ultra-low noise CMOS integrated readout-IC and a high precision bulk micro machined sensing element. The resulting accelerometer reaches an acceleration equivalent noise of only 200 ng/fHz, which makes it suitable for seismic measurement that require noise levels significantly below 1 pgAjHz. The design of the sensing element and readout-IC are presented in detail and measurement results are shown which demonstrate the performance of the sensor system.