MEMS pressure sensors for aerospace applications

MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) pressure sensors have been designed, fabricated and characterized. The fabrication process is fully compatible with IC (integrated circuit) fabrication such that multifunctional microelectronics can be directly integrated on the same chip for advanced aerospace applications. These pressure sensors are designed based on the piezoresistive sensing principle on surface micromachined polysilicon thin diaphragms. Both square- and circular-shape diaphragms with thickness of 2 /spl mu/m and width (diameter) of 100 /spl mu/m have been designed and fabricated. Prototype pressure sensors with 100 Psi in full scale have a measured sensitivity of 0.15 mV/V/Psi and a maximum linearity error of /spl plusmn/0.1% FSS (full scale span).