A Capacitive Sensing Scheme for Control of Movable Element with Complementary Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor Microelectoromechanical-Systems Device

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a new capacitive-sensing scheme that detects the displacement of a movable structure for the control of a microelectoromechanical-systems (MEMS) device stacked on a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) LSI. The problem is that the small capacitance of the air gap between the movable element and a sensor plate needs to be detected in spite of the large parasitic capacitance caused by LSI interconnections. The solution is a sensing circuit that features a shield plate and a ramp detection circuit. The shield plate separates the sensed capacitance from the parasitic capacitance. A ramp detection circuit enhances the detection sensitivity using a gradient signal generated by the parasitic capacitance. To check the effectiveness of the scheme, a sensing circuit and a MEMS variable capacitor were fabricated in a 0.6-µm CMOS process and a MEMS process. This scheme enhanced the sensitivity, which is the ratio of the output voltage to the sensed capacitance, by a factor of six. These results demonstrate that this scheme is suitable for the control of a CMOS-MEMS device.