CHAPTER-1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 OVERVIEW OF MEMS
Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) are Freescales enabling technology for
acceleration and pressure sensors. MEMS based sensor products provide an interface that can
sense, process and/or control the surrounding environment. Freescales MEMS-based sensors are
a class of devices that builds very small electrical and mechanical components on a single chip.
MEMS are made up of components between 1 to 100 micrometers in size (i.e. 0.001 to
0.1mm) and MEMS devices generally range in size from 20mm (20 millions of a meter) to a
millimeter.
MEMS are, in their most basic forms, diminutive versions of traditional electrical and
mechanical devices such as valves, pressure sensors, hinged mirrors, and gears with dimensions
measured in microns manufactured by techniques similar to those used in fabricating
microprocessor chips. These devices can replace bulky actuators and sensors with micron-scale
equivalents that can be produced in large quantities by fabrication processes used in integrated
circuit photolithography. This reduces cost, bulk, weight and power consumption while
increasing performance, production volume, and functionality by orders of magnitude. For
example, one well known MEMS device is the accelerometer for a car airbag a $3 chip that
replaced a system of conventional mechanical sensors costing over $80. MEMS based sensors
are a crucial component in automotive electronics, medical equipment, hard disk drives,

computer peripherals, wireless devices a smart portable electronics such as cell phones and
PDAS (Personal Digital Assistant system).
The MEMS is the batch-fabricated integrated micro scale system that
Converts physical stimuli, events, and parameters to electrical, mechanical and optical
signals and vice versa.
Performs activation, sensing and other functions.

Comprise control, diagnostics, signal processing and data acquisition features.

Basically MEMS is a system that consists of microstructure, micro sensors, and micro
actuator. Microstructure builds the framework of the system, micro sensor detects signals;
microelectronic circuit processes the signals and gives commands to the micro actuator to react
to these signals.
Miniaturization is often the most important driver behind MEMS development. The
common perception is that miniaturization reduces cost, by decreasing material consumption and
allowing batch fabrication, but an important collateral benefit is also in the increase of
applicability. Actually, reduced mass and size allow placing the MEMS in places where a
traditional system wont have been able to fit-finally, these two effects concern to increase the
total market of the miniaturized device compare to its costlier and bulkier ancestor. However
often miniaturization alone cannot justify the development of new MEMS. After all if the bulky
component is small enough, reliable enough, and particularly cheap then there is probably no

reason to miniaturize it. Micro fabrication process cost cannot usually compete with metal sheet
punching or other conventional mass production methods.
Another feature that has influenced the popularity trend of microsensors is that many (but
certainly not all) are based on silicon (Si). The electrical properties of silicon have been studied
for many years and are well understood and thoroughly documented. Silicon also possesses
many desirable mechanical properties that make it an excellent choice for many types of
mechanical sensor.
1.2 MICROMACHINING
MEMS are commonly built on silicon wafer by selectively etching away parts of the
wafer or add new structural layers to form the mechanical and electromechanical devices. The
field of MEMS has evolved because of the fact that silicon and other semiconductors can be used
to fabricate not only integrated electronic circuits, but also transducers and other device by the
use of similar lithographic and other micro fabrication techniques. These techniques that are used
to carry out fabrication of MEMS devices are referred as micromachining.

1.2.1 BULK MICROMACHINING

In bulk micromachining, the single crystal silicon is etched to form three-dimensional

MEMS devices. This is a subtractive process in which the silicon in the wafer is specifically
removed using anisotropic chemistries. Using this bulk micromachining method, sensors such as
piezoresistive pressure sensors have been manufactured in high volume. Devices are formed with
single crystal silicon, which is a very stable mechanical material. In the simplest implementation,
the silicon is selectively etched in certain areas to form a diaphragm. In an absolute pressure
3

sensor, the silicon wafer is then bonded with another wafer (either of silicon or glass) to form a
vacuum-sealed cavity below the diaphragm. The diaphragm then deflects in response to the
applied pressure. The transduction mechanism that has been widely used is the piezoresistive
effect. In piezoresistive materials, the change in the stress causes a strain and a corresponding
change in the resistance. Thus, when implanted piezoresistors are formed at the maximum stress
points of the diaphragm, the deflection under the applied pressure causes a change in the
resistance. Typically, these piezoresistors are formed as a bridge network and the voltage applied
between two terminals causes an output voltage to be measured between the other two terminals.

CHAPTER-2
CHAPTER NAME
A MEMS pressure sensor is basically composed of a diaphragm structure and certain sensing
elements corresponding to their sensing principles, e.g., capacitive effect, piezoelectric effect or
piezo resistive effect.
2.1 LITERATURE DESCRIPTION
In 1954, Smith reported the piezoresistive effect of silicon and germanium, which is a
change of resistance with applied stress. This discovery enabled production of semiconductorbased sensors. Piezoresistive pressure sensors have piezoresistors mounted on or in a diaphragm.
For thin diaphragms and small deflections, the resistance change is linear with applied pressure.
Piezoresistive pressure sensors using polysilicon films deposited on an insulating
substrate (SOI structures) show many attractive advantages against mono crystalline silicon
4

junction devices, mainly the possibility of operation at elevated temperature and the
quasi-linear thermal drift of their metrological parameters, suggested by V.Mosser, J. Susky,
J.Gossin in .1991.
Among the presented literature, Sensitivity enhancement of polysilicon piezo-resistive
pressure sensors with phosphorous diffused resistors [1] is the major motivation behind this work
in which MEMS based Pressure sensors have been designed and fabricated with the
polycrystalline piezo-resistors connected in the form of a Wheatstone bridge and laid out on
thermal oxide grown on membranes obtained with a Silicon On Insulator (SOI) approach. With
the modification in the above literature, Mohan, A.; Malshe, A.P.; Aravamudhan, S.; Bhansali,
Proposed the newtechingue for piezoresistors in PiezoresistiveMEMS pressure sensor and
packaging for harsh oceanic environment [2]. In that work they revealed that the sensor
essentially consists of an array of silicon diaphragms 20-60 m in thickness with selective
regions diffused with boron (p-type) that can be act as piezoresistors.
The analysis solutions of sensitivity and burst pressure were discussed by S.-C. Gong, C.
Lee on his work , Analysis solutions of sensitivity for pressure microsensors, [3]. To decrease
temperature effect, the temperature compensation was reported by R.H. Krondorfer, T.C.
Lommasson, in Direct calculation of sensor performance in a FEA model.The effect of
membrane roughness was studied by Z. Dibi, A. Boukabache, P. Pons, and reported in their paper
entitled Combined effect of the membrane flatness defect and real dimensions gauges on the
sensitivity of a silicon piezoresistive pressure sensor [4]. In that work they presented the
modelling of a structure by micro-electronic techniques and chemical etching, containing four
piezoresistors of the P type connected in Wheatstone bridge andthe parallelism defects of a
square membrane with the effects of real dimension gauges according to their positions on the
5

membrane. They also examined their combined effects on the sensitivity of the sensor. The lack
of flatness collected experimentally for a 30 m membrane thickness is less than 1%, however, it
gives rises to an over-estimation of sensitivity of about 1.5%.

CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER NAME
3.1. PRESSURE SENSOR
Several variations exist in the pressure sensor designs are available in the literature. The
basic principle of operation of a micro machined pressure sensor is the same but the mechanism
used to sense the pressure, and the micromachining techniques used to design the device brings
about the variations in structures.

Figure 3.1 Effect of Stress on rectangular block

6

3.4. DESIGN OF PIEZO RESISTORS FOR SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS

Fig. 3.2 Piezoresistor layout

R1, R2, R3 and R4 are the four resistors that form the Wheatstone bridge. R 1 and R3 are
placed parallel to each other and experience the transverse stress. R 2 and R4 are placed as shown
in Fig. 3.4 and experience the longitudinal stress. The resistors under transverse stress show a
decrease in resistance and the resistors under longitudinal stress shows an increase in the
resistance when pressure is applied. The piezoresistive analysis requires piezoresistive coefficient 11, 12, and 44 for polysilicon film being used to sense the pressure. These model
parameters are estimated by the method described below.

CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER NAME
Pressure sensor using piezoresistive properties of different materials can be easily
developed by surface micromachining techniques. Polycrystaline silicon has acceptable
piezoresistive properties and it is very simple for micromachining. So Polysilicon film is use to
deposit on an oxidized silicon diaphragm. SOI technology has come in handy to achieve this
kind of pressure sensors. Considering these facts, SOI based piezoresistive pressure sensors have
been developed. In this study the effect of piezoresistor placement on the sensitivity is
investigated. This needs a good understanding of the structure and fabrication of a SOI based
piezoresistive pressure sensor. The schematic structure of a SOI based piezoresistive pressure
sensor is shown in Fig .4.1.

Fig. 4.1 SOI based piezoresistive pressure sensor

8

The structure shown in Fig. 4.1 is realized using fabrication techniques that involve
deposition, lithography, and etching. This fabrication process is discussed in detail in the next
section.

CHAPTER-5
CHAPTER NAME

5.1. FORMULATION OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this reported work is to study the effect of resistor size on the
sensitivity of the SOI piezoresistive pressure sensor and explore the feasibility of sensitivity
improvement by adjusting the size of the piezoresistors. There are four piezoresistors and among
these four R1 and R3 (Group I) experience tensile stress and R2 and R4 (Group II) experience
compressive stress when pressure is applied from the bottom.
In order to bring out the effect of resistor size on the sensitivity, the following three cases
were studied keeping the diaphragm size fixed.
Case (i) Size of the resistors of both groups increased
Case (ii) Size of the resistors of Group I increased but Group II resistors size kept at
minimum
Case (iii) Size of the resistors of Group II increased but Group I resistors size kept at
maximum
The above three cases have been studied on two diaphragms of different sizes to see if
same trend in the results are obtained on sensitivity with changes in resistor sizes. In this work, a
pressure sensor (Sensor-A) with a diaphragm of 1000m 1000m and thickness of 13.5m is
considered first and the study has been extended to another sensor (Sensor-B) with a diaphragm
of 1500m 1500m and thickness of 15m to achieve the goal set above.
10

In order to change the size of the piezoresistors, new mask on every dimension was
designed
5.2. INTRODUCTION TO INTELLISUITE SOFTWARE
Intellisuite is a complete integrated design environment for MEMS process modeling,
device layout and device analysis. Intellisuite comes with completely coupled electrical, Piezoelectrical, mechanical and thermal analysis tools for executing linear or non-linear static or
transient analysis.
5.3. FEM MODELLING
Mathematically the finite element method (FEM is used for finding approximate solution
of partial differential equation as well as of Integral equations as well as integral equation such as
the heat transport equation.
5.4. FEM ANALYSIS BY INTELLISUITE SOFTWARE
In this study, Intellisuite software has been used to carry out FEM analysis of the pressure
sensor. The maximum deflection that occurs at the centre of the diaphragm of this sensor is
obtained through thermo mechanical analysis performed by the Intellisuite software. The
Intellisuite returns the results in the form of a 3D Figure as shown in Fig.5.1.
5.6. FLOW CHART
The flow chart for the sequence of operations for thermo mechanical analysis and
piezoresistive analysis is shown in the Fig.5.2.
11

Fig. 5.1. 3D diagram of the diaphragm behavior under applied pressure

CHAPTER-6
RESULTS AND OUTPUT
6.2 INTELLISUITE SIMULATION AND RESULTS
IntelliSuite MEMS CAD tool has been used in this study for simulation. The structure
depicted in Fig.3.3 has been created for simulation using Intelli FAB module.Fig 6.1 shows the
SOI sensor with the cavity at the bottom

Fig.6.1.SOI Pressure Sensor with Cavity at Bottom

Poly silicon made piezoresistors were also fabricated and placed on the surface of the
diaphragm as shown in the fig 6.2 using Intelli FAB module.
3=R4. It was noted that the deflection remains almost constant for all the considered size of
the resistors with negligible variation, since thickness of the diaphragm is same. So the work
turned to focus on voltage analysis on piezoresistors.

12

CHAPTER-7
FUTURE SCOPE
7.1. APPLICATIONS AND FUTURE SCOPE
MEMS have a tremendous future in replacing the components of many commercial
products used today. The medical, wireless (including cellular and network technologies),
biotechnology, computer, automotive and aerospace industries are only a few that will benefit
greatly from MEMS. Furthermore, this enabling technology promises to not only transform
most major industries but to create entirely new categories of products. An almost infinite
number of radical applications are possible because of its potential: nearly limitless
functionality, infinitesimally small form factor, a phenomenal price/performance ratio, and an
architecture that lends itself to mass production, all of which are advantages that drove the
success of the integrated circuit.

13

REFERENCES

[1]

K.Sivakumar, N.Dasgupta and K.N.Bhat, Sensitivity Enhancement of Polysilicon

Piezo-resistive Pressure Sensors with Phosphorous Diffused Resistors, Journal of

[2]

Physics: Conference Series Vol. 34 pp 216221, 2006.

A. Mohan, A. Malshe, S. Aravamudhan, S. Bhansali, PiezoresistiveMEMS pressure
sensor and packaging for harsh oceanic environment, Proc. IEEE Electron. Compon.

[3]

Technol. pp 948950 , 2004.

S.-C. Gong, C. Lee Analysis solutions of sensitivity for pressure microsensors, IEEE

[4]

Sens. J. 5 pp 340344, 2001.

Z. Dibi, A. Boukabache, P. Pons, Combined effect of the membrane flatness defect
and real dimensions gauges on the sensitivity of a silicon piezoresistive pressure sensor

[5]

Proc. IEEE Sens. 2 pp 990-993. 2002.

Milan M. Jevti and Miloljub A. Smiljani, Diagnostic of silicon piezoresistive pressure
sensors by low frequency noise measurements, Sensors and Actuators A, Vol. 144, pp.
267274, 2008.

14