Abstract:
This paper presents the design of two capacitive MEMS accelerometers while following two
different fabrication process constraints. The first accelerometer is designed according to the
design specifications of Silicon-on-Insulator Multi-User MEMS Processes (SOIMUMPS)
fabrication process and the second design follows the MEMS Integrated Design for Inertial
Sensors (MIDIS) fabrication process. The focus of this study is to design a dual axis capacitive
MEMS accelerometer with low cross-axis sensitivity and high reliability. The effect of
thermoelastic damping and residual stresses is observed on the proposed design and its temperature
range of -40 to 100 °C is characterized. The operating bandwidth of designed accelerometers is 0-
400 Hz with operating acceleration of ±15 g for design 1 and ±50 g for design 2. The FEM
simulations of these devices is performed in ANSYS and CoventorWare. The capacitive
sensitivities of design 1 and 2 are 31.5 fF/g and 38 fF/g respectively.
