Long-term Stability Enabling Technology of Silicon-Based Piezoresistive MEMS Pressure Sensor

Abstract

Silicon-based piezoresistive microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) pressure sensor is one of the best studied and commercialized devices among all MEMS devices due to simple structure, easy reading circuit, strong batch fabrication capability and low price. The biggest technical bottleneck of this sensor for high-end applications such as aerospace is long-term stability after packaging. Therefore, long-term stability improvement technologies, as the common key technologies, have been widely concerned by academia and industry. In this paper, three common enabling technologies including pulsating fatigue, thermal-cold cycling and vibration aging are adopted to evaluate the effect of long-term stability of silicon-based piezoresistive MEMS pressure sensors by using control variable method and orthogonal test (OT) method. The comparative test results indicate that all these three technologies can improve the long-term stability of the pressure sensor. In addition, an optimized combination of environmental stress parameters is found to improve the stability more than 90% higher than before the test. The long-term stability of the sensors through the optimal parameter combination aging method is better than the original factory method. The research results can be used for reference to improve the long-term stability of various silicon-based pressure sensors.