Wake up MEMS for inertial sensors

Abstract

A piezoelectric MEMS with wake up function, Power down interrupt generator (PDIG), for inertial sensor systems is reported. The aluminum nitride based MEMS generates electric signals intrinsically in result of an inertial accelerations. The PDIG is optimized for maximum charge and voltage sensitivity. The charge sensitivity for a single electrode designed PDIG is measured with 40.1 pC/g and the maximum voltage sensitivity with 1.273 V/g. The device shows a high linearity and reproducibility. The PDIG is merged with a CMOS electronic, designed for low current consumption in sleeping mode. The minimum acceleration to wake up the system is adjustable and measured with 0.08 g

Co-sputtering of $$\hbox {Al}_{1-x}\hbox {Sc}_{x}\hbox {N}$$ thin films on Pt(111): a characterization by Raman and IR spectroscopies

“…Aluminium nitride, a III-V wide-band gap semiconductor, is successfully utilized as a piezoactive layer in various modern micro-electro-mechanical systems [1,2]. Such prevalence of AlN-based devices stems from the possibility of the low-temperature wafer-scale synthesis of AlN, its compatibility with CMOS technology, and environmental considerations [3,4]. Nevertheless, the quality of the piezoelectric performance of AlN is rather low [5][6][7] in comparison with prominent piezoelectric materials, such as lead zirconate titanate [8], and slightly lower than another tetrahedrally bonded semiconductor, ZnO [9].…”