Design, fabrication, and characterization of a submicroelectromechanical resonator with monolithically integrated CMOS readout circuit

Compact CMOS current conveyor for integrated NEMS resonators

“…Hence, a built-in interface circuit is required. Several implementations based on the passive integration of I res through C par have been reported in the literature [6,10,11]. However, the resulting integration gain is still strongly dependent on the layout parasitics.…”

“…The basis of the fabrication process is described in [10] and consists of post-processing standard CMOS wafers, where a polysilicon area for nanodevice integration has been reserved. However, the novelty here is the lithography technique employed for patterning the nanodevices: an enhanced resolution down to 200nm and full-wafer parallel processing are obtained [9] by applying nanostencil lithography (nSL) [7].…”

Full wafer integration of NEMS on CMOS by nanostencil lithography

“…This strategy simplifies the processing and facilitates the further electrical contact between the nanomechanical devices and the circuits [6].…”

“…The interesting features of the spectrum are listed hereafter. The resonance frequency can be tuned by varying the applied dc voltage [6]: it linearly decreases with the squared dc voltage (assuming dc>>ac). This so-called spring-softening effect arises from the electrostatic force acting on the parallel plate capacitor electrode/mechanical device.…”

Integrated tunneling sensor for nanoelectromechanical systems

“…However, when decreasing the length scale from micrometers to nanometers, capacitive detection becomes increasingly difficult, due to the reduction of the active capacitance compared to the parasitic ones. An amplifier located very close to the NEMS based transducer could help in reducing the effect of stray capacitance components; 4 however, this approach is usually limited by the complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology constraints. Therefore, alternative sensor concepts have been proposed for NEMSs, 1 of which a sensor based on the electron tunneling effect is especially attractive.…”