Temperature Compensated Wide-Range Micro Pressure Sensor with Polyimide Anticorrosive Coating for Harsh Environment Applications

Abstract

In this work, a MEMS piezoresistive micro pressure sensor (1.5 × 1.5 × 0.82 mm) is designed and fabricated with SOI-based micromachining technology and assembled using anodic bonding technology. In order to optimize the linearity and sensitivity over a wide effective pressure range (0–5 MPa) and temperature range (25–125 °C), the diaphragm thickness and the insulation of piezoresistors are precisely controlled by an optimized micromachining process. The consistency of the four piezoresistors is greatly improved by optimizing the structure of the ohmic contact pads. Furthermore, the probability of piezoresistive breakdown during anodic bonding is greatly reduced by conducting the top and bottom silicon of the SOI. At room temperature, the pressure sensor with 40 µm diaphragm demonstrates reliable linearity (0.48% F.S.) and sensitivity (33.04 mV/MPa) over a wide pressure range of 0–5.0 MPa. In addition, a polyimide protection layer is fabricated on the top surface of the sensor to prevent it from corrosion by a moist marine environment. To overcome the linearity drift due to temperature variation in practice, a digital temperature compensation system is developed for the pressure sensor, which shows a maximum error of 0.43% F.S. in a temperature range of 25–125 °C.