Ultra-high temperature (>300 °C) suspended thermodiode in SOI CMOS technology

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This paper reports for the first time on the performance and long-term stability of a silicon on insulator (SOI) thermodiode with tungsten metallization, suspended on a dielectric membrane, at temperatures beyond 300°C. The thermodiode has been designed and fabricated with minute saturation currents (due to both small size and the use of SOI technology) to allow an ultra-high temperature range and minimal non-linearity. It was found that the thermodiode forward voltage drop versus temperature plot remains linear up to 500°C, with a non-linearity error of less than 7%. Extensive experimental results on performance of the thermodiode that was fabricated using a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) SOI process are presented. These results are backed up by infrared measurements and a range of 2-D (dimension) and 3-D simulations using ISE and ANSYS software. The on-chip drive electronics for the thermodiode and the micro-heater, as well as the sensor transducing circuit were placed adjacent to the membrane. We demonstrate that the thermodiode is considerably more reliable in long-term direct current operation at high temperatures when compared to the more classical resistive temperature detectors (RTDs) using CMOS metallization layers (tungsten or aluminum). We also compare a membrane thermodiode with a reference thermodiode placed on the silicon substrate and assess their relative performance at elevated temperatures. The experimental results from this comparison confirm that the thermodiode suffers minimal piezo-junction/piezo-resistive effects.