• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.171-178
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• 1998

Silicon piezoresistive absolute pressure sensor for gas leakage alarm system was developed. This sensor must operate normally in the range of $0{\sim}600\;mmH_{2}O$ pressure, and $0{\sim}100^{\circ}C$ temperature. To make the most of this sensor for gas leakage alarm system, gas must not leak from the sensor itself when the diaphragm of the sensor fractures. Thus, the sealed diaphragm cavity was anodically bonded to pyrex 7740 glass under the condition of $10^{-4}$ torr, at $400^{\circ}C$. The sensitivity of developed sensor was $4.06{\mu}V/VmmH_{2}O$ for $600\;mmH_{2}O$ full-scale pressure range. And temperature compensation method of this sensor is to change bridge-in put-voltage linearly in proportion to the temperature variation by using diode(PXIN4001) or Al thin film resistor. By these methods the temperature effect in the range of $0{\sim}100^{\circ}C$ was compensated over 80 % for offset drift, 95 % for sensitivity.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.7 no.2 s.13
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• pp.245-252
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• 2003

We designed a silicon pressure sensor interface circuit with digital calibration capability. The interface circuit is composed of an analog section and a digital section. The analog section amplifies the weak signal from the sensor and the digital section handles the calibration function and communication function between the chip and outside microcontroller that controls the calibration. The digital section is composed of I2C serial interface, memory, trimming register and controller. The I2C serial interface is optimized to suit the need of on-chip silicon microsensor in terms of number of IO pins and silicon area. The major part of the design is to build a controller circuit that implements the optimized I2C protocol. The designed chip was fabricated through IDEC's MPW. We also made a test board and the test result showed that the chip performs the digital calibration function very well as expected.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.18-24
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• 2011

This paper presents that the yield strength of the pressure sensor with a double boss diaphragm structure can be improved as the grooves are formed at the corner of the diaphragm bridge. Generally the boss structure is widely used for the low-pressure sensor, of which the sensitivity is not enough in case of the small diaphragm size limited by a chip size constraint. The double boss structure pressure sensor exhibits a great sensitivity, but suffers from the low yield strength problem due to the high stress occurred at the corner of the diaphragm bridge to be limited in the operating range. ANSYS simulation is performed by changing the length of the groove from 0.5${\mu}m$ to 10${\mu}m$ at the corner of the diaphragm bridge of the double boss structure pressure sensor. The maximum stress is analyzed at the corner of the diaphragm bridge, the edge of the diaphragm bridge, and the position of the piezoresistive sensor. Consequently, in case the length of the groove from the edge of the diaphragm is 6${\mu}m$ or greater, the stress occurred in the corner of the bridge is less than the stress acting on a piezoresistive element.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.559-560
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• 2006

The paper presents solutions of conventional piezoresistive pressure sensors. Deflection of diaphragm by external stress causes some problems, because the electrode is deposited on the diaphragm formed piezoresistors. To solve these problems, piezoresistors is formed by two implantation steps. To fabricate diaphragm, the backside silicon etching step is done by immersing the wafer into TMAH solution. $30{\mu}m$ thick diaphragm is obtained. Sensitivity of the piezoresistive pressure sensor fabricated is 48.6 mV/V-psi.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.12 no.3 s.36
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• pp.267-274
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• 2005

This paper presents the fabrication of surface acoustic wave (SAW)-based pressure sensor for long-term stable mechanical compression force measurement. SAW pressure sensor has many attractive features for practical pressure measurement: no battery requirement, wireless pressure detection especially at hazardous environments, and easy other functionality integrations such as temperature, humidity, and RFID. A $41^{\circ}$ YX $LiNbO_3$ piezoelectric substrate was used because of its high SAW propagation velocity and large values of electromechanical coupling factors $K^2$. A silicon substrate with $\~200{\mu}m$ deep cavity was bonded to the diaphragm with epoxy, in which gold was covered all over the inner cavity in order to confine electromagnetic energy inside the sensor, and provide good isolation of the device from its environment. The reflection coefficient $S_{11}$ was measured using network analyzer. High S/N ratio, sharp reflected peaks, and clear separation between the peaks were observed. As a mechanical compression force was applied to the diaphragm from top with extremely sharp object, the diaphragm was bended, resulting in the phase shifts of the reflected peaks. The phase shifts were modulated depending on the amount of applied mechanical compression force. The measured $S_{11}$ results showed a good agreement with simulated results obtained from equivalent admittance circuit modeling.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.17-24
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• 1996

In order to reduce the offset and its temperature drift by the different properties of the piezoresistors and the residual stress of the piezoresistive pressure sensor, a double Wheatstone-bridge pressure sensor was studied. Because the compensation bridge was arranged near by the pressure sensitive bridge, which have the similar offset component, reduction of the offset and its temperature drift was realized by the mathematical subtraction of the output of two bridges. It was configured the compensation of the offset and its temperature drift. By this compensation method, the offset and its temperature drift were reduced approximately 95% respectively. The sensitivity of the fabricated pressure sensor was $11.7\;mV/Vkg/cm^{-2}$ for $0.9\;kgfcm^{-2}$ full-scale pressure range.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.17-24
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• 1992

Hydrogen gas sensors were fabricated after the form of metal/insulator/semiconductor(MIS) structure on a p-type silicon wafer and a insulating layer (silicon dioxide) thickness was changed from $500{\AA}$ to $5000{\AA}$. Their electrical properties were investigated with the variation of the hydrogen gas concentration at room temperature. At the applied forward bias of lV to both ends of Pd-MIS sensors the current was decreased logarithmically with the increase of hydrogen concentration in air. In the case of a thin $SiO_2$ layered ($500{\AA}$) sensor the current ratio was decreased to 25 % at 1 % of hydrogen concentration in air and 50% for a thick $SiO_2$ layered ($5000{\AA}$) sensor. And the response time of the thick insulating layered sensor to 1% hydrogen containing air was about 50 seconds and regeneration time was 2.5 minutes. When a 0.5mA current was appied to the thick insulating layered sensor the maximun voltage shift was calculated to 0.8V in the case of ${\theta}$ = 1 and the Pd surface coverage of hydrogen was increased logarithmically with hydrogen partial pressure.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.138-142
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• 2016

A pulse measurement by tonometry provides useful information for diagnosis, including not only blood pressure and heart rate but also parameters for estimating a condition of the cardiovascular system. Currently, various pulse measurement devices based on the tonometry have been developed. A reliability of these devices is determined by a positioning technic between the sensor and the blood vessel and a controlling technique of the pressurization level. An angle of the sensor for the pulse measurement seems to be highly related with a measured signal, however, the objective studies for this issue have been not published. In this paper, the variation of the pulse signals by tonometry direction was experimentally assessed according to the angle of the sensor. In order for guaranteeing the repeatability of the experiment, we used a pulse generator device, which can generate human pulse signal by using silicon tube and fluid pump, and developed a structure for precise adjustment of the angle and the pressurization level of the sensor. The angle of the sensor was acquired by an inclinometer, which was attached at the opposite side of the sensor. As results, a coefficient of variation (CV) of a maximum amplitude (MA) of the pulse wave was largely increased over the angle range of $-9{\sim}9^{\circ}$. Furthermore, the changes of the pulse shape showed different aspects according to the sign of the angle tilted along the blood vessel. It is expected that the results of this study can be helpful for developing more precise pulse measurement devices based on the tonometry and applying in clinic.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.220-226
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• 1997

An optical intensity-type pressure sensor has been fabricated by coupling multimode optical fiber with 100 nm-Au/30 nm-NiCr/150 nm-$Si_3N_4/300 nm-SiO_2/150 nm-Si_3N_4$ optical reflection layer supported by micromachined frame-shape silicon substrate, and its characteristics was investigated. For the application of $Si_3N_4/SiO_2/Si_3N_4$ diaphragm to the optical reflection layer of the sensor, NiCr and Au films were deposited on the backside of the diaphragm by thermal evaporation , respectively, and thus optical low caused by transmission in the reflection layer could be decreased to a few percents. Dielectric diaphragms with uniform thickness were able to be also reproduced because top- and bottom-$Si_3N_4$ layer of the diaphragm could automatically stop silicon anisotropic etching. The respective pressure ranges in which the sensor showed linear optical output power-pressure characteristics were 0~126.64 kPa, 0~79. 98 kPa, and 0~46.66 kPa, and the respective pressure sensitivities of the sensor were about 20.69 nW/kPa, 26.70 nW/kPa, and 39.33 nW/kPa, for the diaphragm sizes of 3$\times$3 $\textrm{mm}^2$, 4$\times$4 $\textrm{mm}^2$, and 5$\times$5 $\textrm{mm}^2$, indicating that the sensitivity increases as diaphragm size increases.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.334-340
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• 2000

This paper presents the fabrication of a micro electromagnetic flow sensor for the liquid flow rate measurement. The micro electromagnetic flow sensor has some advantages such as a simple structure, no heat generation, a rapid response and no pressure loss. The principle of the micro electromagnetic flow sensor is based on Faraday's law. If conductive fluid passes through a magnetic field, the electromotive force is generated and detected by two electrodes on the wall of the flow channel. The flow sensor consists of two permanent magnets and a silicon flow channel with two electrodes. The dimension of the flow sensor is $9\;mm\;{\times}\;9\;mm\;{\times}\;1\;mm$. The micro flow channel is mainly fabricated by anisotropic etching of two silicon wafers, and the detection electrodes are fabricated by metal evaporation process. The characteristic of the fabricated flow sensor is obtained experimentally. When the flow rates of water with the conductance of $100-200\;{\mu}S/cm$ are 9.1 ml/min and 62 ml/min, the generated electromotive forces are $261\;{\mu}V$ and 7.3 mV, respectively.