THERMAL DRIFT CHARACTERISTICS OF CAPACITIVE PRESSURE SENSORS

Abstract

The capacitive pressure sensors based on silicon are characterized by their very high sensitivities and their low power consumption. Nevertheless, their thermal behavior remains more or less unpredictable because they can indicate very high thermal coefficients. The study of the thermal behavior of these sensors is essential to define the parameters that cause the output characteristics drift. In this study, we modeled the thermal behavior of this sensors, using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) made in COMSOL. The model solved by COMSOL environment takes into account the entire sensor and thermal effects due to the temperature considering the materials’ properties, the geometric shape and also the heat transfer mechanisms. By COMSOL we determine how the temperature affects the sensor during the manufacturing process. For that end, we calculated the thermal drift of capacitance at rest, the thermal coefficients and we compared them with experimental results to validate our model. Further, we studied the thermal drift of sensor characteristics both at rest and under constant and uniform pressure. Further, our study put emphasis on the geometric influence parameters on these characteristics to optimize the sensor performance. Finally, this study allows us to predict the sensor behavior against temperature and to minimize this effect by optimizing the geometrical parameters.

Keywords

• Temperature coefficient
• Capacitive pressure sensor
• Silicon
• COMSOL