MEMS Accelerometer

Fomenko Artem
WS 18/19
Physical 𝐴
 𝐶𝑠 = 𝜖0 ;
Principle 
𝑑
Capacitive sensing is independent of the
An accelerometer is an base material and relies on the variation of
electromechanical device that capacitance when the geometry of a
measures acceleration forces capacitor is changing.
Accelerometers could use 2 major
effects in their design – either change
of capacitance (more common) or
piezoelectric effect.
Capacitance is the ratio of the
change in an electric charge in a
system to the corresponding change
in its electric potential.
Capacitive accelerometers sense a
change in electrical capacitance, with  Differential capacitive measurement is
respect to acceleration, to vary the now the most used method for
output of an energized circuit. The capacitance sensing in
sensing element consists of two accelerometers.
parallel plate capacitors acting in a
differential mode.

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MST Implementation
Typical MEMS
accelerometer is composed
of movable proof mass with
plates that is attached
through a mechanical
suspension system to a
reference frame. Movable
plates and fixed outer plates
represent capacitors.
Every sensor has a lot of
capacitor sets. All upper
capacitors are wired parallel
for an overall capacitance
C1 and like wise all lower
ones for overall capacitance
C2, otherwise capacitance
difference would be
negligible to detect.

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Manufacturing steps
The problem of patterning a material is generally split in
two distinct steps:
• First, deposition and patterning of a surrogate layer
that can be easily modified locally. For this case
photo patterning is used, the surrogate layer used
is a special polymer (photoresist) which is sensitive
to UV-photon action. The photoresist is first coated
on the substrate as a thin-film. Then it is exposed to
UV radiation through a mask. The mask has clear
and opaque regions according to the desired
pattern, the clear regions allowing the photoresist to
be exposed to UV radiation and modifying it locally.

• Secondly, there are two main techniques that can

be used to transfer the pattern: lithography and lift-
off. In lithography the patterned layer allows
exposing locally the underlying material. The
exposed material is then etched physically or
chemically before we finally remove the protective
layer. For lift-off, we deposit the material on top of
the patterned layer. Complete removal of this layer
(called a sacrificial layer) leaves the material only in
the open regions of the pattern .

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Benefits and challenges
 In most cases accelerometers have a lot of benefits:
 Due to popularity of this device now is very cheap to use in
various fields.
 Accelerometers are widespread and commonly used for
many applications like sensing angular, linear and vibration
changes.
 Different types of accelerometers could measure various G-
values and very minor displacements.
 On the other hand production process of MEMS
accelerometers is still pretty comprehensive and there is no
conventional methods used for their fabrication. Also, there are
cases of low-energy (medical) or high-precision (military used)
accelerometers, which is still more complicated and costly
process.

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Application and current use
 Airbag sensors in cars (crash, roll-over detection);
 Mobile phones – built-in video stabilization and tilt sensors;
 HDD protection from external disturbances;
 Aerospace industry companies uses accelerometers in such fields
as UAV, plane, missile control;
 Vibration detection
 IoT (mostly control-based applications)

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION

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