Polymer Ring–Flexure–Membrane Suspended Gate FET Gas Sensor: Design, Modelling and Simulation

Abstract

This work reports the design, modelling, and simulation of a novel polymer MEMS gas sensor platform called a ring–flexure–membrane (RFM) suspended gate field effect transistor (SGFET). The sensor consists of a suspended polymer (SU-8) MEMS based RFM structure holding the gate of the SGFET with the gas sensing layer on top of the outer ring. During gas adsorption, the polymer ring–flexure–membrane architecture ensures a constant gate capacitance change throughout the gate area of the SGFET. This leads to efficient transduction of the gas adsorption-induced nanomechanical motion input to the change in the output current of the SGFET, thus improving the sensitivity. The sensor performance has been evaluated for sensing hydrogen gas using the finite element method (FEM) and TCAD simulation tools. The MEMS design and simulation of the RFM structure is carried out using CoventorWare 10.3, and the design, modelling, and simulation of the SGFET array is carried out using the Synopsis Sentaurus TCAD. A differential amplifier circuit using RFM-SGFET is designed and simulated in Cadence Virtuoso using the lookup table (LUT) of the RFM-SGFET. The differential amplifier exhibits a sensitivity of 2.8 mV/MPa for a gate bias of 3 V and a maximum detection range of up to 1% hydrogen gas concentration. This work also presents a detailed fabrication process integration plan to realize the RFM-SGFET sensor using a tailored self-aligned CMOS process adopting the surface micromachining process.