High-Performance Single-Side Fabricated (111)-Silicon Dual-Cantilever Accelerometer with Squeeze-Film Air Damping Modulation

Abstract

This study proposes a novel design and micromachining process for a dual-cantilever accelerometer. Comb and curved-surface structures are integrated into the sensing structure to modulate the squeeze-film damping, thus effectively optimizing the response frequency bandwidth. Owing to the high stress concentration on the dual-cantilever integrated with a fully sensitive piezoresistive Wheatstone bridge, a high sensitivity to acceleration is achieved. In addition, the dual-cantilever accelerometer is fabricated using a specifically developed low-cost and high-yield (111)-silicon single-side bulk-micromachining process. The test results show that the proposed dual-cantilever accelerometer exhibits a sensitivity of 0.086–0.088 mV/g/3.3 V and a nonlinearity of ±(0.09%–0.23%) FS (full-scale). Based on dynamic characterization, an adequate frequency bandwidth of 2.64 kHz is verified. Furthermore, a resonant frequency of 4.388 kHz is measured, and a low quality factor (Q) of 7.62 is obtained, which agrees well with the design for air-damping modulation. The achieved high performance renders the proposed dual-cantilever accelerometer promising in applications such as automotive and consumer electronics.