LOW NOISE VACUUM MEMS CLOSED-LOOP ACCELEROMETER USING

SIXTH-ORDER MULTI-FEEDBACK LOOPS AND LOCAL RESONATOR

SIGMA DELTA MODULATOR
Fang Chen
1
, Weizheng Yuan
1
, Honglong Chang
1
, Ioannis Zeimpekis
2
and Michael Kraft
3

1
Northwestern Polytechnical University, Key Laboratory of Micro/Nano Systems for Aerospace, CHINA
2
University of Southampton, School of Electronics and Computer Science, UK
3
University of Duisburg-Essen, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, GERMANY

ABSTRACT
This paper reports on the design, implementation of a
novel sixth-order sigma-delta modulator () MEMS
closed-loop accelerometer with extended bandwidth in a
vacuum environment (~0.5Torr), which can coexist on a
single die (or package) with other sensors requiring vacuum
packaging. The fully differential accelerometer sensing
element with a large proof mass (47mm
2
) was designed and
fabricated on a Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) wafer with
50m-thick structural layer. Four electronic integrators were
cascaded with the sensing element for high-order noise
shaping ability. The local feedback paths created a local
resonator producing a notch to further suppress the total
in-band quantization noise. Measurement results show the
overall noise floor achieved was -120dBg/Hz, which is
equivalent to a noise acceleration value of 1.2g/Hz in a
500Hz bandwidth; the scale factor was 950mV/g for input
accelerations up to 6g.

INTRODUCTION
MEMS accelerometers are being used in consumer,
automotive, industrial and navigation applications, the
market volume of accelerometers is constantly increasing.
Integrating MEMS accelerometers with other types of
micro-sensors including gyroscopes, resonators, barometers
and magnetometers on a common substrate to form a
multi-axis sensing microsystem cannot only reduce size and
fabrication cost, but also broad the application field of these
devices [1]; examples include ten-degrees-of-freedom
(10-DOF) sensing microsystems and 6-DOF inertial
measurement units (IMU). The 10-DOF sensing
microsystem comprises accelerometers, gyroscopes,
magnetometers and a barometer, which can be used to
accurately map the motion and position of an object in space.
The 6-DOF IMU consisting of accelerometers and
gyroscopes are used in gaming, image stabilization in digital
cameras, electronic stability control in automobiles and for
robotics.
However, the vacuum operating requirements of high
performance micro-sensors such as Coriolis gyroscopes and
resonators are contradictory to the packaging requirements
for accelerometers which should be critically damped. The
high quality factor (Q) attained under vacuum provides lower
mechanical (Brownian) noise and higher sensitivity for
gyroscopes and resonators, but leads to unacceptably long
settling times for accelerometers due to an under-damped
response and thus ringing.
Open-loop accelerometers with narrow capacitive gaps
can increase air damping to ensure stable operation at
low-pressure levels (~1Torr), but overall system noise level,
bandwidth and sensitivity are not suitable for high
performance applications [2]. An alternative approach is to
use a frequency modulated accelerometer which relies on
tracking of the resonant frequency of MEMS resonators [3,
4]; the induced acceleration changes the resonant frequency
of the device due to changes in the total effective stiffness
[5]. In this configuration, gyroscopes and accelerometers can
be integrated in the same vacuum environment. However,
relatively large polarization voltages and complex
compensation techniques are required.
In this paper, we propose a novel sixth-order low
noise MEMS closed-loop accelerometer, which can operate
in vacuum. Four electronic integrators are cascaded with the
accelerometer to provide sixth-order noise shaping ability.
Furthermore, the local feedback paths create a local resonator
which produces a notch to further suppress the total in-band
quantization noise. A feedback voltage signal was applied to
the proof-mass to artificially damp the system [6]. A similar
high-order control method can also be used for
gyroscopes to improve its noise performance, linearity and
bandwidth [7, 8]. The high-order loop filters consisting of
electronic integrators and resonators can be implemented in a
FPGA.

SYSTEM DESIGN
MEMS Accelerometer

Figure 1: Schematic diagram of a single-axis fully
differential accelerometer sensing element.
978-1-4799-3509-3/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE 761 MEMS 2014, San Francisco, CA, USA, January 26 - 30, 2014
The proposed single-axis fully differential capacitive
MEMS accelerometer was fabricated using a dicing free and
HF vapour phase release process [9] on a SOI wafer with
device layer thickness of 50m. The schematic view of the
accelerometer sensing element is shown in Figure 1. The
proof mass is supported by four folded elastic beams, each
side has two folded beams. It has two sets of sensing
capacitors (C
sa+
and C
sa-
, C
sb+
and C
sb-
) and two sets of
feedback capacitors (C
fa+
and C
fa-
, C
fb+
and C
fb-
) are
connected in series, respectively. The capacitors C
sa+
, C
sa-
,
C
fa+
, C
fa-
have a nominal gap of 7m while C
sb+
, C
sb-
C
fb+
, C
fb-

have a gap of 30m. When an acceleration input signal is
applied, the proof mass displacement is converted into a
capacitance change by the differential parallel capacitors
C
s_top
(C
sa+
, C
sb+
) and C
s_bot
(C
sa-
, C
sb-
). The feedback
excitation voltage acts on the differential feedback capacitor
C
f_top
(C
fa+
, C
fb+
) and C
f_bot
(C
fa-
, C
fb-
) causing a feedback
electrostatic force which acts on the proof mass to change the
damping of the sensor, thus controlling the acceleration to
displacement transfer function. The design parameters of the
accelerometer sensing element are listed in Table 1.

Table 1: Design parameters of the MEMS accelerometer
sensing element.
Parameter Value
Mass of proof mass(m) 1.62g
Damping coefficient (b) 1.210
-3
Ns/m
Spring stiffness (k) 93.2N/m
Structural layer thickness 50m
Number of sensing comb fingers 966
Number of feedback comb fingers 144
Length of sensing comb fingers
(overlapping)
65m
Length of feedback comb fingers
(overlapping)
295m

Closed-loop System
The Simulink model of the presented electromechanical
interface is shown in Figure 2. The sensing element
embedded in a provides second-order integration, and
is cascaded with four electronic integrators to achieve
sixth-order noise shaping. A compensator C
p
(s) is required to
provide phase lead to ensure loop stability. K
po
is the pick-off
gain. The scaling coefficients K
1
, K
2
, K
3
and K
4
are used for
integrator output scaling, the feedback gains K
f1
, K
f2
, K
f3
and
K
f4
determine the loop pole positions. The local feedback
paths g
1
, g
2
and g
3
create a local resonator that generates
complex pairs of zeros resulting in an in-band notch.
For linear system analysis, the quantizer can be modeled
by a variable gain K
q
with additive white quantization noise
[7, 8]. Using standard linear control system theory, the signal
transfer function (STF), electronic noise transfer function
(ENTF) and quantization noise transfer function (QNTF) of
the closed-loop system can be derived as:
4
1
( ) ( )
( )
( )
m i i
i
fb
m K s H s K
STF s
L s K
=

=

(1)
4
1
( ) ( )
( )
( ) ( )
m i i
i
fb po
K s H s K
ENTF s
L s K M s K
=

=

(2)
3
1
1
1 ( ) ( )
( )
( )
i i i i
i
H s K H s g
QNTF s
L s
+
=
+
= (3)

where
( ) ( ) ( )
m fb po p q
K s K M s K C s K =
4
1
( ) 1 ( ) ( )
m i i
i
L s K s H s K
=
= +
4 3
4 1
1 1
1 1 2 1 3 3 2 4 4
( ) ( )
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
i
q fi j j i i j
j i j i
i i
q
K K H s K K g H s
H s K H s g K H s g K H s K
+
= =
= =
+ +
+



where M(s) is the transfer function of the accelerometer
sensing element and K
fb
is the feedback transfer gain.

Figure 2: Simulink model of a MEMS accelerometer closed-loop system with the system noise shaped by a sixth-order
control system.
762
10
1
10
2
10
3
-250
-200
-150
-100
-50
0
50


(Hz)
STF
QNTF
ENTF
Figure 3: Magnitude plots of the transfer functions STF,
QNTF and ENTF.

Figure 3 shows the bode diagram of STF, QNTF and
ENTF. There are two notches in the QNTF, the first notch
frequency is determined by the poles of the sensing element
and the second notch is provided by the local resonator.

10
0
10
1
10
2
10
3
10
4
-180
-160
-140
-120
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
Frequency (Hz)
M
a
g
n
i
t
u
d
e

(
d
B
g
/

H
z
)
Figure 4: Simulated power spectral density of the simulated
output bitstream with a 1g, 128Hz acceleration input signal.

The sampling frequency was chosen as 2
17
Hz; assuming
2
10
Hz signal bandwidth; this corresponds to an
over-sampling ratio (OSR) of 64. For a sinusoidal
acceleration input signal with 1g amplitude at 128Hz the
simulated power spectral density (PSD) of the output
bitstream of the sixth-order continuous time
accelerometer is shown in Figure 4. An in-band notch can be
clearly observed. The overall noise floor is about
-125dBg/Hz.

EXPERIMENTAL TESTS AND RESULTS
As shown in Figure 5, the accelerometer sensing element
is mounted onto a carrier printed circuit board (PCB) and
bonded using aluminium wires. A plastic and transparent
cover is used to isolate the sensor chip from moisture and
particle contamination.


Figure 5: Picture of the wire bonded accelerometer sensing
element without cover.

As shown in Figure 6 the system was implemented as a
circuit with off-the-shelf electronic components on a PCB
following the topology of the presented Simulink model. It
used a power supply of 12V. The output bitstream can be
transmitted to a personal computer (PC) through a USB chip
and interface. To reduce electro-magnetic interference on the
PCB, analog and digital ground is connected together at a
single point with a magnet bead.
A test was carried out in a vacuum chamber with a 1g,
128Hz acceleration excitation input. Figure 7 shows the
shaker table setup, placed in a vacuum chamber in which the
pressure can be adjusted. The input acceleration is applied by
a commercial shaker. The output signal from the
accelerometer is not only recorded by a spectrum analyzer
(Agilent Inc., 35670A), but also transmitted to a PC and
post-processed with Matlab.

Figure 6: Photograph of the accelerometer with the
sixth-order control circuit implemented on the PCB.

Figure 7: Experimental setup and testing circuit.

Figure 8 shows the output spectrum for the
accelerometer at 0.5Torr vacuum for a 1g, and 128Hz
acceleration excitation input. The measured overall noise
floor achieved was -120dBg/Hz, which is equivalent to a
noise value in the 500Hz bandwidth of 1.2g/Hz, which is
763
in excellent accordance with the simulation shown in Figure
4. Figure 9 shows the spectrum of the accelerometer with the
local resonator switched on and off. It is obvious that the
presented local resonators results in a wider baseband for the
MEMS accelerometer. Figure 10 shows the static response
for input accelerations up to 6g; the measured scale factor is
950mV/g.
10
1
10
2
10
3
10
4
-180
-160
-140
-120
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
Frequency (Hz)
M
a
g
n
i
t
u
d
e

(
d
B
g
/

H
z
)

Figure 8: Noise spectrum of the measured closed-loop
system at 0.5Torr vacuum with a 1g, 128Hz input signal,
showing a noise floor level of 1.2g/Hz within 500Hz.
10
1
10
2
10
3
10
4
-180
-160
-140
-120
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
Frequency (Hz)
M
a
g
n
i
t
u
d
e

(
d
B
g
/

H
z
)

Figure 9: Measured spectrum of the presented closed-loop
accelerometer at 0.5Torr vacuum with the resonator
switched on and off.
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
-8
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
Applied acceleration (g)
O
u
t
p
u
t

V
o
l
t
a
g
e

(
V
)

Figure 10: Static response for input accelerations up to 6g.
The measured scale factor is 950mV/g.

CONCLUSION
A fully differential single-axis capacitive accelerometer
with sixth-order closed-loop control system was
implemented. Results show that a high-order can
stabilize the accelerometer system under low pressure levels,
allowing co-existence on a single die with other
micro-sensors requiring vacuum packaging. This method
provides a potential solution for high-performance
single-chip multi-axis MEMS sensing systems.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported in part by the Chinese National
Science Foundation under Grant 61273052, in part by the
Chinese New Century Excellent Talents in University under
Grant NCET-10-0077, and in part by the 111 project under
Grant B13044.

REFERENCES
[1] F. Ayazi, Multi-DOF inertial MEMS: From gaming to
dead reckoning, Transducers 2011 Conference,
Beijing, June 5-9, 2011, pp. 2805-2808.
[2] Y. Jeong, D. Serrano, V. Keesara, W. Sung, F. Ayazi,
Wafer-level vacuum-packaged tri-axial accelerometer
with nano airgaps, IEEE MEMS 2013 Conference,
Taipei, Jan 20-24, 2013, pp. 33-36.
[3] A. Seshia, S.A. Zotov, B.R. Simon, A.M. Shkel, A
vacuum packaged surface micromachined resonant
accelerometer, IEEE J. Microelectromech. Syst, vol.11,
pp. 784-793, 2002.
[4] A.A. Trusov, S.A. Zotov, B.R. Simon, A.M. Shkel,
Silicon accelerometer with differential frequency
modulation and continuous self-calibration, IEEE
MEMS 2013 Conference, Taipei, Jan 20-24, 2013, pp.
29-32.
[5] R. Hopkins, J. Miola, W.Sawyer, et al. The silicon
oscillating accelerometer: a high-performance MEMS
accelerometer for precision navigation and strategic
guidance applications, in Proc. Nat.Tech.Meeting
Inst.Navigation, San Diego, Jan 24-26, 2005, pp.
970-979.
[6] M. Yucetas, M. Pulkkinen, A. Kalanti, et. al., A
high-resolution accelerometer with electrostatic
damping and improved supply sensitivity, IEEE J.
Solid-State Circuits, vol. 47, no.7, pp. 1721-1730, 2012.
[7] F. Chen, H. Chang, W. Yuan, R. Wilcock, M. Kraft,
Parameter optimization for a high-order band-pass
continuous-time sigma-delta modulator MEMS
gyroscope using a genetic algorithm approach, J.
Micromech. Microeng., vol. 22, no.10, 105006, 2012.
[8] F. Chen, W. Yuan, H. Chang, et al., Design and
Implementation of an optimized double closed-loop
control system for MEMS vibratory gyroscope, IEEE
Sensors J., vol. 14, no.1, pp. 184-196, 2014.
[9] I. Sari, I. Zeimpekis, M. Kraft, A dicing free SOI
process for MEMS devices, Microelectron. Eng., vol.
95, no.7, pp. 121-129, 2012.

CONTACT
*Honglong Chang, tel: +86-29-8849-2841;
changhl@nwpu.edu.cn
*Michael Kraft, michael.kraft@uni-due.de

764