Multi-Function Microelectromechanical Systems Implementation with an ASIC Compatible CMOS 0.18 μm Process

Abstract

A multi-function microelectromechanical system (MEMS) with a three-axis magnetometer (MAG) and three-axis accelerometer (ACC) function was implemented with an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)-compatible complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) 0.18 μm process. The readout circuit used the nested chopper, correlated double-sampling (CDS), noise reduction method; the frequency division multiplexing method; the time-division multiplexing method; and the calibration method. Sensing was performed by exciting the MEMS three-axis magnetometer at X/Y/Z axes mechanical resonant frequencies of 3.77/7.05/7.47 kHz, respectively. A modest die-level vacuum packaging resulted in in-plane and out-of-plane mechanical quality factors of 471–500 and 971–1000, respectively. The sensitivities of both the three-axis magnetometer with 2 mA driving current and the three-axis accelerometer were 7.1–10.7 uV/uT and 58.37–88.87 uV/ug. The resolutions of both the three-axis magnetometer with 2 mA driving current and three-axis accelerometer resolution were 44.06–87.46 nT/√Hz and 5.043–7.5 ng/√Hz. The resolution was limited by circuit noise equivalent acceleration (CNEM) and Brownian noise equivalent magnetic field (BNEM).

Keywords

• microelectromechanical systems
• three-axis magnetometer
• three-axis accelerometer