Micromechanical structures and microelectronics for acceleration sensing

MEMS is an enabling technology that may provide low-cost devices capable of sensing motion in a reliable and accurate manner. This paper describes work in MEMS accelerometer development at Sandia National Laboratories. This work leverages a process for integrating both the micromechanical structures and microelectronis circuitry of a MEMS accelerometer on the same chip. The design and test results of an integrated MEMS high-g accelerometer will be detailed. Additionally a design for a high-g fuse component (low-G or {approx} 25 G accelerometer) will be discussed in the paper (where 1 G {approx} 9.81 m/s). In particular, a design team at Sandia was assembled to develop a new micromachined silicon accelerometer which would be capable of surviving and measuring high-g shocks. Such a sensor is designed to be cheaper and more reliable than currently available sensors. A promising design for a suspended plate mass sensor was developed and the details of that design along with test data will be documented in the paper. Future development in this area at Sandia will focus on implementing accelerometers capable of measuring 200 kilo-g accelerations. Accelerometer development at Sandia will also focus on multi-axis acceleration measurement with integrated microelectronics