Out-of-plane MEMS-based mechanical airflow sensor co-integrated in SOI CMOS technology

André, Nicolas;Rue, Bertrand;Scheen, Gilles;Flandre, Denis;Raskin, Jean-Pierre;et.al.
(2014) Sensors and Actuators A: Physical : an international journal devoted to research and development of physical and chemical transducers — Vol. 206, p. 67-74 (2013)

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Abstract
This paper demonstrates the monolithic integration of an airflow sensor based on out-of-plane movable cantilevers with a CMOS integrated circuit providing small footprint and low-power sensing. Airflow is sensed by mechanical deflection of cantilevers without static power consumption contrary to classical thermal flow sensors based on micro-heater. The interfacing circuit is a CMOS ring oscillator (RO), fabricated on the same chip with Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology, offering unique properties such as harsh environment resistance and low power consumption. Moreover, the additional post-processing steps required by the built-in of out-of-plane cantilevers are minimum thanks to the use of standard CMOS materials and dry etching of the sacrificial layer. The developed microsystem demonstrates 10% variation of the RO frequency for an air flow varying from 0 to 120 m/s, with a static power consumption of the order of 1 µW.
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André, N., Rue, B., Scheen, G., Flandre, D., Francis, L., & Raskin, J.-P. (2014). Out-of-plane MEMS-based mechanical airflow sensor co-integrated in SOI CMOS technology. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical : an international journal devoted to research and development of physical and chemical transducers, 206, 67-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2013.11.017 (Original work published 2013)