Solid-state sensors for microsystem applications

Solid state sensors provide an indispensable link for gathering, processing, and communicating information between microsystems, users and the nonelectronic world. As the microsystem technology rapidly gains importance in the market, solid-state sensors have become an important key factor on determining the performance of the microsystem and opening new market area for future VLSI (very-large-scale-integrated) systems. Significant advances have been made in developing new integrated sensors and microsystems, for example, sensors for measuring pressure, acceleration, flow, image, vibration, strain, sound, and many others have been developed. This paper will briefly review the state-of-the-art in integrated sensors and microsystems. The application of integrated circuit (IC) technology to microsensors is also addressed. In addition, as an example, this paper will give a short description on the basic principles and applications of humidity sensors. Moreover, sensors market development are presented in the end.