Low Power High Bandwidth Acceleration Sensor for Industrial Applications

This paper reports on the improved micromechanical structures and improved integrated electronics to create high bandwidth acceleration sensors with a high signal to noise ratio and very low power electronics. This ambitious aim can be achieved by a very close co-design of MEMS and ASIC. Our two axis micromechanical element is optimized with respect to its seismic mass, which is needed to have an ultra-low noise sensor. Therefore, a large height of the micro mechanical structure is preferred. Another aim is a very high capacitive sensitivity while keeping the base capacitance as small as possible to aim for a small power consumption. Hence, a high aspect ratio technology is essential.