HIGH-RESOLUTION CAPACITIVE MEASUREMENT OF MICROSTRUCTURE

DISPLACEMENT USING COHERENT DETECTION

L. Mol1*, G. de Graaf1, L.A. Rocha2 and R.F. Wolffenbuttel1
1
Delft University of Technology, Faculty EEMCS, Dept. for Microelectronics, Delft, The Netherlands
2
University of Minho, Department of Industrial Electronics, Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal
*L.Mol@ewi.tudelft.nl, T: +311527885747, F: +31152785755

Summary: A system for high-resolution capacitive measurement of the displacement of microstructures is

presented. The system is based on coherent detection and is composed of a fully differential front-end circuit and
lock-in amplifier. The carrier frequency is chosen in the MHz range, which is far above the mechanical signal
bandwidth to prevent the measurement from actuating the microstructure. The circuit is designed for on-chip
integration of all functions in a BiCMOS process in a next stage. Measurements indicate a noise-level
corresponding to a 0.75 nm equivalent displacement at a bandwidth of 5 kHz and a dynamic range of 2·103 for a
typical microstructure fabricated in an epi-poly process with a nominal capacitance of 611 fF and capacitance
changes <100 aF.
Keywords: coherent detection, capacitive read-out, lock-in amplifier, MEMS readout circuit.

INTRODUCTION bandwidth of the device, avoiding electrostatic

coupling. Instead of the aforementioned techniques,
Read-out of inertial sensors with sufficiently high
coherent detection is used to retrieve the
sensitivity, dynamic range and bandwidth has been a
displacement from the applied carrier signal.
challenge ever since the development of MEMS. A
variety of sensor read-out architectures have been
published that deal with these challenges [1]. COHERENT DETECTION
Switched capacitor techniques [2] are the most
Coherent detection or synchronous detection is a
common in CMOS technology, but their dynamic
powerful yet flexible technique to measure the
range is limited by clock feed-through and charge
amplitude or phase of a periodic signal in the
injection, especially at high frequencies. The voltage
presence of noise and other disturbing signals. It is
required for readout also causes mechanical
commonly used in telecommunications [5]
interaction with the device, due to the non-linear
(heterodyne systems) and also in instrumentation
relation between the voltage and the electrostatic
systems [6] (lock-in amplifiers).
force on the moving capacitor plates. This
electrostatic actuation is used in many force feedback An important prerequisite for coherent detection is
techniques, e.g. Sigma-Delta modulation and systems prior knowledge of frequency and phase of the signal
based on Charge or Force balancing [3][4]. In this to be measured. Suppose a transducer modulates an
work the frequency of the measurement carrier signal applied high frequency carrier in amplitude. Such
is chosen much higher than the mechanical signal can then be demodulated by multiplying it with

Figure 1. Graphic representation of the principle of coherent detection.

the original carrier signal. This operation yields two
signal components: one having the sum frequency
and one the difference frequency. This last term is a
DC term if and only if both signals have the same
frequency. The amplitude of the DC term is dependent
on the modulation of the carrier and any phase shift
between the multiplier inputs. If the modulating signal
is of much lower frequency than the carrier the
resulting LF signal can be easily filtered from the
mixed signal.
To avoid wideband noise sensitivity due to quadratic
nonlinearities in the multiplier, the reference signal is
converted from a sine to a square wave. This does
however introduce additional sensitivity to signals
around higher odd multiples of the carrier frequency.
This issue can be addressed by proper
preconditioning of the signals. Figure 1 illustrates the
benefits of a coherent detection approach.
A dedicated coherent detection based lock-in amplifier
system has been built for capacitive readout of the Figure 2. Fabricated micro electrostatic accelerometer
accelerometer described in the next section.
The fabricated structure is composed of four folded
beams, 340 µm long and 2.5 µm wide, connected to
two rigid central bars of about 1mm. One set of
MEMS DEVICE parallel-plate capacitors can be used for actuation.
The read-out circuit is designed for a triple-plate The other is used for the read-out. Mechanical
micromachined accelerometer. A proof mass (the stoppers limit the mass displacement to 2 µm in a
middle plate) is suspended on springs between two 2.25 µm gap. Table 1 lists the important properties of
fixed electrodes. A displacement of the middle the device.
electrode causes changes in the capacitance. The
changes in capacitance are very small both in
absolute value (~100 aF) as well as compared to the
SYSTEM OVERVIEW
initial and parasitic capacitances. The device is
fabricated in the Bosch epi-poly process [7] (Figure 2). Figure 3 shows a block diagram of the measurement
system. A sinusoidal carrier signal with frequency
much higher than the mechanical bandwidth is
Table 1. Accelerometer properties applied to the middle electrode of the microstructure.
The differential capacitance of the sensor and the
Mass m 4.27 µg fixed-value capacitors C0 form a capacitive bridge.
Spring constant k 1.29 N/m Sensor parasitics due to interconnect and wiring can
Sensing capacity Cs 611 fF be automatically compensated in an initial balancing
Sensitivity S 32 nm/g cycle by two tuneable capacitors. Any structure
displacement will cause bridge imbalance and
Resonance frequency fr 2.77 kHz
therefore provide a modulated carrier signal for the
Initial gap distance d0 2.25 µm following amplifier. The bridge readout amplifier is a

Figure 3. Block diagram of the realized coherent detector.

front-end wideband transconductance amplifier (WTA) ⎛ d ⎞ ⎛ d ⎞
[8] that produces an output current Io proportional to ∆Cs1 = Cs ⋅ ⎜⎜ 0 − 1⎟⎟ ; ∆Cs2 = Cs ⋅ ⎜⎜ 0 − 1⎟⎟ (3)
the bridge output voltage. The gain of this voltage-to- ⎝ d0 − d ⎠ ⎝ d0 + d ⎠
current converter is set by Zi. Substituting (3) in (2) Vi then becomes:
Z ⎛ ⎞
Vo = o Vi (1) 2C0 Cs d0 d
Zi Vi = ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟ ⋅ Vc (4)
⎝ (Cs d0 + C0 d0 − C0 d )(Cs d0 + C0 d0 + C0 d ) ⎠
The lack of internal feedback limits the accuracy of the
gain. However, the high bandwidth and full-differential The first order linear approximation of Vi(d) is:
operation yields a high common-mode rejection at the ⎛ 2C0 Cs d ⎞
carrier frequency (>70 dB) and a sufficient DC Vi = ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟ ⋅ Vc (5)
⎝ (Cs + C0 ) d0 ⎠
2
precision in this application.
The output of the WTA is fed to a differential double Figure 5 shows a plot of the bridge transfer function
balanced mixer [9], where multiplication with the for Cs = 611 fF and C0 = 15 pF. Clearly the bridge
carrier yields a DC and LF component proportional to transfer function is not linear in d, however for
amplitude of the modulated carrier and also higher displacement up to the static pull-in point (0.75 µm)
harmonic components. The mixer is basically a the linearity is sufficient.
voltage-to-current converter. Current subtraction plus
a gain stage are used to convert the differential output

bridge transfer function Vi/Vc

current into a level-shifted DC voltage with additional 0.1
DC gain setting. The signal is filtered by a 2nd order
Sallen-Key filter at 5 kHz. This sets the bandwidth of 0.08
the overall measurement system. The final DC gain
stage allows level-shifting and overall gain setting. An
0.06
important feature of the modulation process is that the
DC drift and 1/f noise of the front-end amplifier are
removed. 0.04

0.02
BRIDGE LINEARITY
The linearity of the capacitive bridge is of importance 0
for measuring large displacements. Since the change 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4
in capacitance with displacement d is not linear, an displacement d [um]
optimal bridge configuration is not trivial. The used Figure 5. Plot of the transfer function (black line) of the
simple configuration of the bridge is shown in figure 4. capacitive bridge, also showing the first order linear
Assuming equal initial sensing capacitances the approximation (grey line).
bridge transfer function can be expressed as:
C0 (∆Cs1 − ∆Cs2 )
Vi = Vc (2)
(Cs + ∆Cs1 + C1 )(Cs + ∆Cs2 + C1 )
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
∆Cs1 and ∆Cs2 represent the changes in the This system architecture has been implemented on a
structures’ differential capacity on either side. With d0 PCB using commercially available components.
the initial gap size and ignoring fringe field effects, Applying plus and minus one g of gravitational force to
∆Cs is dependant on the displacement d as: the device determines the overall sensitivity to be 7.1
mV/nm. A sinusoidal mechanical acceleration of 1g
RMS at a frequency of 185 Hz has been applied to
the MEMS device. The measured output spectrum of
the displacement measurement is shown in figure 6.
The equivalent input-referred noise density is 21
nV/√Hz or 10 pm/√Hz. The mechanical thermal white
noise level can be expressed as a displacement
4kbTb
d noise =
k spring
and for b ≈ 0.2·10-3 Ns/m is at 1.4 pm/√Hz, just a
Figure 4. The capacitive bridge configuration factor 7 lower.
 Figure 6. Output spectral density (displacement in dB-nm) at a 185 Hz 1g rms acceleration. Sampled for 4 s at 100ks/s
Over the accelerometer full 5 kHz bandwidth, the total
equivalent input-referred noise is 1.5 µV. This
corresponds to a displacement resolution of 750 pm
or a 0.2 fF change in sense capacitance. With the
current gain settings the output reaches the supply
voltage at 750 nm, which is the pull-in point for
electrostatic actuation. The dynamic range is therefore
2·103
CONCLUSIONS
A coherent detection scheme has been successfully
applied to measure small displacements of an inertial
MEMS device. A typical equivalent noise level of 10
pm/√Hz has been achieved at a dynamic range of
2·103 dB. Future work will focus on performance
enhancement by on-chip integration of the entire
system, reducing parasitics and power dissipation and
also improving matching and bandwidth. Different
bridge configurations that are inherently (more) linear
will also be investigated. The integrated circuit version
should be more universally applicable, by
electronically programming parameters such as:
carrier frequency, gain, bandwidth and offset
cancellation.
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