Design, Fabrication and Testing of Miniaturised Wireless Inertial Measurement Units (IMU)

J Barton, A Gonzalez, J Buckley, B O’Flynn, S C O’Mathuna

Tyndall National Institute,
Lee Maltings, Prospect Row, Cork, Ireland,
john.barton@tyndall.ie; Ph: +353 21 490 4088

subtracting off the effect of gravity from the measured

Abstract
acceleration and then performing double integration starting
This paper will describe the design, fabrication, operation,
from a known initial position. With known starting position
and test results of a miniature Wireless Inertial Measurement
and the transformed sensor data true orientation and position
Unit (WIMU) with a form factor of 10mm. Many types of
can be calculated [7]. Though recent advances in micro-
Inertial Measurement Units(IMU) have been designed and
electromechanical systems (MEMS) and other
manufactured by prominent companies such as Crossbow,
microfabrication techniques have led to lower cost, more
Xsens, O NAVI and Honeywell, among many others.
compact devices, full IMU’s can still be bulky and/or
American GNC Corporation currently claims to have the
expensive so the development of an IMU layer for the
world’s smallest IMU[1]. Most of these IMUs are aimed at
Tyndall 25mm system was considered an imperative. Using
aerospace and other types of navigation, which is why
the newer, miniaturised MEMS components brings with it
miniaturisation has not been a priority. However, with the
other problems. All MEMS sensors suffer from an offset
onset and development of MEMS technology, novel
known as bias. The gyro bias shows itself up as an angular
applications have been found for those MEMS sensors
drift after the integration stage. The accelerometer suffers
employed in an IMU. Head mounted displays, Segways and
from even worse integration error as the sensor data is
mobile phones are among the new products taking advantage
integrated twice to attain position data. This gives rise to a
of miniaturised MEMS inertial sensors.
potential position drift error raised to the power of 2. Both
The current WIMU development is a step along the these errors increase proportionally with time. The IMU layer
roadmap of the AES team at Tyndall National Institute includes a 3-axis magnetometer to provide for the north
towards miniaturisation and works from the current standard, magnetic reference and therefore compensate for biases of the
the 25mm platform [2]. A 25mm stacked SMT IMU has been gyroscopes in the measurement of head’s yaw angle. The
successfully developed and tested [3,4]. The goal now is to application of filtering techniques during the data processing
develop an even smaller version of this IMU by using stage will compensate for the other errors.
advanced technology such as flexible substrates and flip-chip
The 25mm WIMU is a 6 DOF IMU module, which is
technique. These miniaturised IMU’s are required for
made up of an array of inertial sensors coupled with a high
wearable and medical applications where size and weight are
resolution Analog to Digital converter (ADC). The 25mm
priorities. Our WIMU uses bare-die versions of off-the-shelf
WIMU module utilises the wireless communication
MEMS sensors. The Inertial Measurement Unit itself is
capabilities of the 25mm Wireless Node to realise a fully
designed to give full six degrees of freedom with 3-axis for
autonomous WIMU module. The 25mm WIMU can be seen
each of the sensors-accelerometers, gyroscopes and
in Figure 1 with a flexible antenna. The inertial sensor array
magnetometers
that makes up the 25mm IMU consists of three single axis
Introduction gyroscopes, ADXRS150 [8] from Analog Devices, two dual
Inertial measurement components, which sense either axis accelerometers, ADXL202 [9] from Analog Devices, and
acceleration or angular rate, are being embedded into two dual axis magnetometers, HMC1052L [10] from
common user interface devices more frequently as their cost Honeywell. The sensor array was designed with a novel 3D
continues to drop. These devices hold a number of advantages structure, which produces the 6 DOF functionality. The
over other sensing technologies as they directly measure module
important parameters for human interaction and they can
easily be embedded into mobile platforms. The operating
principles for measuring orientation and position of a moving
body using only gyroscopes and accelerometers have been
well established in the field of inertial navigation
systems(INS) [5,6] and have been briefly described in [4].
Inertial navigation is accomplished by integrating the output
of a set of sensors to compute position, velocity, and attitude.
The sensors used are gyroscopes and accelerometers. To get
position, 3 linear accelerometers, also affixed to orthogonal
axes of the moving body, measure the total acceleration
vector of the body relative to inertial space. This acceleration
vector can be converted from body coordinates to earth
coordinates using the known instantaneous orientation of the
body determined by the gyros. Position is then obtained by Figure 1: Tyndall's 25mm WIMU Module

1-4244-0985-3/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE 1143 2007 Electronic Components and Technology Conference
also has a 12-bit ADC chip, AD7490 [11] from Analog
Devices, handling the data conversion. This chip has a Serial
Peripheral Interface (SPI), which allows easy interfacing to
the ATMEL microcontroller on the processor/transceiver
layer of the wireless node. This WIMU is currently used in
diverse applications ranging from animal tracking to
expressive dance.
Other research groups have similarly taken advantage of
the miniaturisation possibilities that MEMS sensors provide.
Wang et al used MEMS sensors in the location system of
micro-robotic autonomous helicopters. They designed a
double sided, 37mm x 30mm x 15mm PCB also using Analog
Devices and Honeywell components [12]. Ang et al from
Carnegie Mellon attempted to remove the errors, as well as
the cost, associated with gyroscopes by designing an all-
accelerometer IMU for tremor sensing in surgical instruments
with ADI accelerometers again the sensors of choice [13].
More recently, Shi et al from the Chinese University of Hong
Kong presented the development of their µIMU for a human
airbag system. [14]. Three ADXRS300 gyroscopes (single-
axis) and two ADXL203 accelerometers (dual-axes) were
used in their system on a 26mm x 20mm x 20mm PCB. In the
arena of interactive dance and building on their previous work
in expressive footwear, Aylward et al from Professor
Paradiso’s group at MIT Media Lab developed a compact
IMU measuring 41mm x 41mm x 12.5mm for capturing
expressive gestures in real-time when worn at the hands and
feet of a dancer [15].
However, though these examples are much reduced in size
and weight from commercial IMU’s, further miniaturisation is
desirable particularly for wearable and medical applications.
To this end, we investigated the feasibility of reducing the
size of our IMU using packaging techniques like flip-chip and
flexible substrates while maintaining as much of the
functionality as possible.
10mm IMU
For miniaturization of the IMU we investigated flexible
substrates with both SMD and capped bare die sensors. When
the project was initiated, there were only single axis MEMS
gyroscopes and bi-axial accelerometers freely available in
prototype quantities, though packaged tri-axial accelerometers
did become available during the project. This focused the
design of the IMU as the modularity had to be sacrificed
because suitable connectors could not be located. To ensure
the orthogonality of the sensors we decided to design the IMU
on a flexible substrate in a cruciform shape and fold it into a
cube form factor. We investigated 2 different IMU
configurations; wireless IMU with SMD components but no
magnetometers and full IMU with magnetometers but no
wireless. This second configuration had bare die components
and was capable of being connected to the 25mm Tyndall
node. The SMD design can be seen in Figure 2. The next
section will give some details about the flexible substrate
manufacture while the following sections will detail the 2
different configurations as well as different interconnect
mechanisms attempted in connecting the bare die sensors to
the flexible substrates.
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Figure 2: 10mm SMD IMU design
Flexible Substrates
A number of commercial flex board manufacturers were
approached in relation to the manufacture of the 10mm
IMU’s. A number of the manufacturers reviewed the design
but could not offer the design rules that the module required
or could not guarantee the 90° bend that was required. A
number of manufacturers that were capable of the design rules
were not willing to bid on the manufacture due to the low
quantity that was involved in the build. A relevant
manufacturer was sourced that could satisfy the design rules
and offered a number of innovative solutions to the bend axis
issue. A long deliberation process ensued which was to agree
upon a circuit build that would satisfy the design
requirements. The following is a summary of the final circuit
build specification that was proposed by AllFlex, Inc
manufacturers:
1. The copper should be ½ ounce; which is 0.0007” (17-
18 microns)
2. The topside cover film will be LPI (Rogers 8080), but
will not extend in to the bend areas. This will leave the
bend axis exposed, which allows a more accurate bend
at the axis and reduces the risk of the cover film
rupturing and damaging the circuit. The backside
cover film will be polyimide cover film again leaving
the bend axes exposed. There will be a .020" (500um)
gap at the bend axis to help the 90° bend in the board
3. Plating will only occur at the pad locations so traces
will not be plated to again reduce the chance of
cracking.
4. The manufacturer suggested a creasing process
whereby the circuits could be essentially scored along
the bend axis to encourage the circuit to bend at the
desired point. They guaranteed that this would not
damage the conductors in any way. It became apparent
that this would be an issue, as the circuit needs to be
planar for the flip chip process. It was made clear that
this process could not be carried out once the circuit
had been populated. As a result of this there was not
any creasing of the circuit prior to assembly
5. Surface finish will be Immersion silver. A common
SMT metallic finish is Nickel Gold however nickel is
quite a brittle material by nature, and the fact that the
conductors will be exposed at the bend axes increased
 the risk of the Ni in the Ni/Au plating cracking. A
more malleable material was proposed in Silver and
was agreed upon as it also suited the soldering
requirements of the module.
We also sourced 2 other manufacturers (3 in total) and
obtained SMD IMU’s from one and one version each of the
bare die IMU’s from the other two.
10mm IMU – SMD Version
This wireless IMU contains the following components:
¾ 1 x ATMega 128L microcontroller
¾ 1 x Nordic nrf2401 transceiver
¾ 1 x Kionix KXM52; a 3 Axis accelerometer in a
5mm x 5mm package
¾ 3 x Analog Devices ADXLRS150; a 1 Axis
gyroscope in a 32-pin BGA package
This was realized in a 12mm x 12mm x 12mm cube when
folded and can be seen, planar and folded in Figure 3.
(a)
Figure 3: 10mm SMD IMU (a) planar and (b) cube
10mm IMU – Bare Die Version 1
The design for the bare-die IMU differs from the SMD
version in that there are no wireless/processor components but
it does include magnetometers. We obtained capped bare die
sensors from Analog devices and for reduced footprint, we
flip-chipped the sensors to the substrate using Au ball bonds.
This necessitated the creation of suitably shaped holes in the
substrate
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Figure 4: 10mm bare die IMU design.
to allow the caps to pass through when flipped. The holes in
the circuit are laser drilled as the tolerance between the edge
of the through hole and the nearest pad is too fine for a
mechanical process. The design can be seen in Figure 4.
Therefore the sensor BOM for this IMU is:
¾ 2 x Analog Devices ADXL202E; a 2 Axis
accelerometer (bare-die)
¾ 3x Analog Devices ADXLRS150; a 1 Axis
gyroscope (bare die)]
¾ 2x Honeywell HMC1052L; a 2 Axis Surface Mount
Magnetic Sensor in a 16 pin LCC package
The sensors were connected to the flex substrate via Au
bumps. The initial investigation on Au bumps with ACA film
showed that the film made it difficult to punch holes as
required for the capped sensors. Subsequently ACA paste was
investigated for the process and chosen for the development
of the module. One of the problems encountered with the
ACA was that it leaked through the hole and stuck to the
underlying holder. We decided to dispense with the adhesive
and use the bumps on their own. Figure 5 shows
accelerometer sensors with bumps while Figure 6 is a close
up of a bumped gyroscope.
Five samples of each sensor were picked for shear testing of
the bumps. The Au bumps were sheared using a Royce 552
Strength tester and a total of 95 bumps were sheared from the
gyroscopes and 45 from the accelerometers. The results of the
shear tests can be seen in the table below.
ID Mean Std. Dev
Accelerometers 40.625 10.13
Gyroscopes 29.0061 13.01
Table 1: Shear Test results
One substrate was then sent for component assembly and
after this, the sensors were flip-chipped to the substrate. This
substrate was then taken for functional testing in the planar
state before folding to the cube form factor necessary for
complete 6 DOF. A picture of the substrate assembled with
the sensors can be seen in Figure 7. A stainless steel block
was machined with holes appropriately milled out for the
sensor caps. These blocks were required as support structures
for the flex substrates while the sensors were being flipped.
This ensured the planarity of the devices and avoided damage
to the sensors.
Figure 5: Bumped samples
Figure 6: Au bumps on ADXRS150 gyroscopes
10mm IMU – Bare Die Version 2
This was essentially the same design as Version 1 but with a
Ni/Au finish and solder paste interconnections. It was
possible to dispense the solder paste onto the sensors or onto
the substrate. Controlled dispensing was necessary because
the holes in the substrate rendered screen-printing impractical.
However, the small size and pitch of the sensor pads also
created difficulty for dispensing. The sensors had a minimum
pad size of 90µm with a pitch of 75µm. The CAM/LOT
dispensing machine at Tyndall normally used for such tasks
was unable to meet the required pitch. Therefore we
investigated the possibility of Ink-Jet printing of solder paste
onto the substrates.
1146 2007 Electronic Components and Technology Conference
Figure 7: 10mm planar bare-die IMU Version 1
Ink-Jet is a non-contact dot-matrix printing technique,
which in theory, depending on wettability allows the printing
of many fluids on a media to create an image or pattern. The
core of Ink-Jet micro-dispensing systems consists of a glass
capillary, which is surrounded by a piezo actuator. Applying a
voltage pulse to the piezo it contracts and creates a
longitudinal pressure pulse in the liquid inside the capillary.
At the nozzle, the pressure is transduced into a highly
accelerated motion, which expels a small droplet. Typical
drop diameters are 30 -100 µm depending on the nozzle
diameter. An advantage of the technique is that multiple jets
can be deployed for volume production for applications.
A research single-jet JetLabII system, from Microfab
technologies, was used for this work. The drive waveform
used to induce the pressure wave in the dispensing device has
a complex saw tooth profile. Varying the rise, dwell and fall
times of the waveform allows the drop size and volume to be
changed. This translates to a 62µm to 120µm ball diameter
variation when dispensing from a 50µm orifice. Vision
system 2 is used to set up the optimum waveform to produce
the desired drop conditions i.e. correct size, speed and
uniformity while the print head is positioned over a waste
reservoir. In this position, possible problems such as satellite
formation where the tail of the drop may break off, or too
slow a drop are eliminated. To maintain the same jetting
speed for different volumes of solder, the voltage of the
waveform must be altered accordingly. The distance between
the target and dispensing device is usually kept to within 1mm
and the droplet falls with a velocity of 1.5 to 3 m/s for
accurate placement.
Before the printer could be used to dispense solder the drop
formation had to be characterised. Factors affecting the drop
shape are largely governed by Young’s Equation and include
surface energies of the droplet and surface, ambient
conditions, jetting speed, distance travelled by the drop and
gravity. However, for a given jet process, droplet formation
after impact is determined by the target surface treatment and
its properties.

Figure 8: Pb/Sn wetting to electroless plated Au
It was also noted that contaminated and oxidised surfaces that
had large surface energies showed both very poor adhesion
and an extremely small contact angle. The contact angle
between the drop and the surface is a measure of the
hydrophobic nature of the target. The ridges of the classic
drop shape illustrated in Figure 8 are produced by freezing the
oscillations that occur due to the impact of the drop with the
surface. For reflow, the drops were preheated at 60ºC in a N2
atmosphere for 3mins followed by 1min dwell at 200ºC for
one min. Figure 9 shows the solder conforming to the metal
pad after reflow resulting in a height reduction and diameter
increase to the size of the pad.
Figure 9: 63/37 Pb/Sn after reflow
With the characterization of the InkJet complete, the sensors
are currently ready for assembly and this is currently taking
place.
Characterisation of the IMU
The IMU module has been developed using off the shelf
components from suppliers such as Analog Devices and
Honeywell. The performance of the module had to be tested
in the planar state for basic functionality and then for the
generation of a set of system specifications. A number of
experiments were designed and executed to carry out this
characterisation. The system was wired to a PC to log the
information received from the IMU for off board analysis.
Each of the sensors was subject to conditions that excited the
respective sensing properties (tilt, rotation,) and the results
were recorded and compared to manufacturers’ specifications.
The accelerometers were subject to tilt extremes to measure
the max, min and zero offsets. The gyroscopes were excited
using a calibrated rotating table. All of the data was recorded
and analysed used a customised C++ application. This
1147 2007 Electronic Components and Technology Conference
application was developed to provide a visual analysis of the
sensor data being produced by the IMU.
Using this application, the Gyroscopes and
Accelerometers were all tested and shown to be working
within the expected parameters. The Gyroscopes recorded
sensitivity was within 2% of the expected value. The
Accelerometers all produced sensitivity factors within 5% of
their expected specified values.
Sensor Experimental Expected
Resolution Resolution
Acceleration 600 mV / g 624 mV/g
Rate of Turn 4.5 mV / °/s 4.6 mV/°/s
Table 2: Characterisation of sensors
Reliability Problems
On bending the substrate A cruciform into the cube shape,
problems were encountered with the performance of the
accelerometers. This problem was eventually traced to tracks
cracking at the bend axis as can be seen in Figure 10. A
selection of other unassembled substrates were then taken for
simple bend tests and all showed signs of tracks cracking after
only one 90° bend and relax. Unassembled samples from all 3
manufacturers were then tested and minute cracks were found
on all samples.
Figure 10: Conductor cracking on substrates
Conclusions/Future Work
We have successfully designed and fabricated 6 DOF
miniaturized IMU’s using MEMS sensors for wearable and
medical applications. Assembled using SMD and bare die
sensors on a cruciform substrate with 3 different assembly
techniques (one of which is still being characterized), these
IMU’s were tested and characterized in the planar state.
However, reliability problems were discovered on bending
the substrates into the cube form factor. This was traced to
conductor cracking within the bend radius.
In the near future, Version 2 of the bare die IMU will be
assembled using Inkjet printing of solder paste while the
reliability of the substrates will continue to be evaluated. If a International Conference on Robotics & Automation
re-design is required, there has been a proliferation of multi- Taipei, Taixao, September 14-19, 2003,
axial MEMS sensors on the market within the last year and it 14. Shi G. et al, “Development of a Human Airbag System for
is certainly feasible that a 6DOF IMU can be fabricated in a Fall Protection Using MEMS Motion Sensing Technology
planar format which would eliminate any flex bending “, Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/RSJ International
reliability issues. Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Beijing,
China, October 9 - 15, 2006, pp. 4405-4410.
Acknowledgments
15. Aylward R. et al, “A Compact, Wireless, Wearable Sensor
We would like to acknowledge the support of other
Network for Interactive Dance Ensembles”, Proc of the
members of the Ambient Systems team, particularly Frank
International Workshop on Wearable and Implantable
Murphy, Javier Torres and Philip Angove. We would like to
Body Sensor Networks (BSN’06)
extend our thanks to Kieran Harney, Analog devices
Micromachining Division and Michael Coln, SAR ADC
Group Analog Devices, for the provision of devices for this
work. We would like to thank the European Commission for
funding the MULTIPLEYE project in the IST programme
(IST- -2001-35108) and the rest of the MULTIPLEYE
consortium. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the
support of Enterprise Ireland in funding the D-SYSTEMS
project.
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