Manufacturing and characterization of CMOS-MEMS magnetic field microsensors with isolated cavities

Abstract

The study investigates a magnetic field (MF) microsensor with isolated cavities manufactured utilizing complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology. This microsensor comprises four identical magnetic sensing elements, each featuring an emitter, a base, two collectors, and an additional collector. The MF microsensor chip is fabricated using the commercial CMOS process. Upon completing the CMOS process, post-processing is employed to etch the silicon substrate of the microsensor chip, generating isolated cavities on the silicon substrate. These isolated cavities effectively mitigate substrate leakage current, enhancing the sensitivity of the MF microsensor. The experimental results reveal that the sensitivity of the microsensor without isolated cavities is 60 mV/T. In contrast, the microsensor with isolated cavities exhibits a sensitivity of 121 mV/T. A comparison between microsensors with and without isolated cavities depicts that the sensitivity of the MF microsensor with isolated cavities doubled.

Manufacturing and measurement of CMOS-MEMS-based micro thermoelectric generators with long-length thermocouples

“…Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology has been utilized to create a variety of miniaturized components, including microsensors [12][13][14][15][16] and microactuators [17][18][19][20][21]. The application of MEMS techniques in micro thermoelectric generator (MTG) offers benefits such as enhanced scalability, cost-effectiveness, and the potential for batch production.…”