Download or read book Modelling and Optimization of Piezoresistive Pressure Sensors written by Michal Olszacki and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1954, when the piezoresistive effect in semiconductors was discovered, the approach to the pressure measurement has changed dramatically and new devices with outstanding performances have appeared on the market. Along with the development of microtechnologies for integrated circuits, a new branch of MEMS called devices have stormed our world. One of the biggest branches of today's microsystems are pressure transducers which use the synergy of the piezoresistivity phenomenon and microfabrication technologies. While the main idea of strain gauge-based pressure measurement has not changed over the last few decades, there has been always a need to develop the design methodology that allows the designer to deliver the optimized product in the shortest possible time at the lowest possible cost. Thus, a lot of work has been done in the field in order to create tools and develop the FTR (first time right) methodology. Obviously, the design of the device that best fulfills the project requirements needs an appropriate simulation that have to be performed at the highest possible details level. Such an approach requires the detailed model of the device and, in case of its high complexity, a lot of computing power. Although over the last decade the most popular approach is the FEM analysis, there are some bottlenecks in such an approach like the difficulty of the implanted layers modeling where the doping profile shape has to be taken into account especially in the coupled electromechanical analysis. In this thesis, we try to present the methodology of the pressure sensor design which uses the analytical model of such a sensor that takes into consideration the nonuniform doping profile of the strain gauge, deals with the basic membrane shapes as well as with thermal and noise issues. The model, despite its limitations in comparison to the FEM one, gives trustworthy results which may be used for the reliable pressure sensor design in an extremely short time. In order to be quantitative, the analysis showing the drawbacks and advantages of the presented method in comparison to the FEM analysis using specialized tools like ANSYS ® and SILVACO-ATHENA® packages is also presented. Then, the model is used in a multi-objective optimization procedure that semi-automatically generates the design of a sensor, taking into account project requirements and constraints. At the end, the statistical analysis that may be helpful to estimate the production yield is performed. All three steps are included in the dedicated design and optimization tool created in a MATLAB ® environment and successfully tested. In the last section, the experimental results of fabricated samples are compared to those obtained by the developed tool.