High Performance Inertial

Navigation Grade Sigma-Delta

MEMS Accelerometer
P. Zwahlen, Y. Dong, A-M. Nguyen, F.Rudolf,
Colibrys SA
P. Ullah, V. Ragot, Sagem
September 18th 2012
Why a MEMS accelerometer for high end applications ?

MEMS accelerometers are widely spread in the automotive, consumer

and industrial markets

MEMS accelerometers are starting to replace established, expensive
and fragile high-end electromechanical devices

MEMS accelerometers can offer same or better performance at lower
cost, lower power consumption, smaller size and greater strength

Some MEMS accelerometers have already penetrated on civilian and
defence programs (Airbus and Boeing aircrafts, gun lauched smart
munitions, *)

 MEMS accelerometers will soon be compatible with high-end inertial navigation

systems

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Objectives

AIDA: a MEMS accelerometer for inertial navigation

Need
Lower cost compared to non-MEMS solutions
High performance
 Full scale ~15g
 Bias stability < 1mg
 Rectification < 10 g/g
 Scale factor < 1000 ppm
 Bandwidth > 300 Hz
 Low frequency noise ~1 g/Hz (equivalent to 18bit resolution for 300Hz bandwidth)

Architecture
Bulk silicon pendular MEMS
 Robust, stable
Capacitive sense/actuation
 Detector == actuator

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Accelerometer architecture

Open-loop limitations
Noise
 Brownian noise due to gas damping
Linearity
 Squeeze-film effect, electrostatic forces (non-linear functions of gap)
 Vibration-induced rectification
Bandwidth
 Limited by natural frequency and damping

Closed-loop solution
Noise
 Operation at high Q for the MEMS possible. Allows reduction of Brownian noise
 Position control achieved through electronic regulation
Linearity
 Reduced seismic mass excursion thanks to feedback control. Improved vibration rectification
Bandwidth
 Signal bandwidth extension up to over 10kHz
 Precise data time stamp is essential for inertial navigation and guidance applications

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 Part I: System Description

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Closed-loop sensor System Architecture

Capacitive bulk micromachined MEMS Chip

Capacitive position detector including low resolution ADC (7 bit
equivalent)

Digital loop filter (position control)

Oversampled Sigma-Delta converter
Pulse density modulation
1-bit comparator  Bitstream output
1-bit DAC applying constant voltage to bottom or top electrode

Acceleration mean value estimated through high linearity 1-bit DAC

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Sigma-Delta converter for accelerometer

Sigma-Delta principle

High frequency 1-bit conversion instead of high resolution

High quantization noise rejected in high frequency by noise shaping
concept

High linearity achieved by averaging

Advantages Trade-offs 1
Fe = 0 r A
(2 Vref )
2

2 e2
Linearization of
electrostatic forces

High linearity High sampling frequency

Low passband noise

Hardware simplicity Increased computing

(analog detection, complexity
actuation voltage)

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MEMS sensor and detection

MEMS Sensor Spring

Top electrode

3-stack silicon electrode assembly

High temperature Silicon Fusion Bonding Middle electrode

(SFB) technology resulting in highly Mass

Bottom electrode
stable assembly

Time multiplexing concept
Allows usage of same electrodes for both sense
readout and forcing

Capacitive detection

Voltage amplifier topology

Analog modulation / demodulation
(Correlated Double Sampling)

Switched capacitor
Chosen for its versatility to interface with
different size MEMS capacitors
Dedicated phase for charge injection removal
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Testboard V2 Accelerometer interface

Sigma-Delta board V2

Test board
FPGA for digital filtering, decimation & control
sequencing
Clock oscillator
Power supply decoupling capacitors
Communication interface

ASIC & MEMS & Temp sensor packaged
inside a standard JLCC-44 package

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System design for high stability

High stability MEMS sensor

Careful spring anchoring design
3-stack Silicon MEMS technology with Silicon Fusion Bonding technologies for
excellent long-term stability and hermeticity
Die attach stress decoupling technique

Detection chain offset reduction

CDS technique
Charge injection removal

High stability voltage reference

Low impedance output up to high frequency
Low noise
High stability

Matching and repeatability of electrode switching operation

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 Part II: Performance Results

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 Noise Transfer Function

g/sqrt(Hz)
White noise: 1

Noise bandwidth: 300 Hz
Bitstream output

CIC filtered
output

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Temperature modeling Bias (K0)

Bias temperature
slope: Class 200 g/C

Low bias residues:
< 300g

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Temperature modeling Bias (K0): Statistical distribution

Statistical evaluation over a population of 11 boards

all components are based on a single MEMS design and technology

Thermal bias
slopes
distribution is
below 150 g/C

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Temperature modeling Scale Factor (K1)

Excellent Scale
Factor
repeatability
(device to device)

Scale factor
temperature slope:
Class 100 ppm/C

Low scale factor
residues:
< 200 ppm

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Temperature modeling Scale Factor: Statistical distribution

Scale factor temperature slope distribution below 100 ppm/C

Scale factor residues distribution: < 200 ppm

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Temperature modeling Misalignment (Kp)

Misalignment
temperature slope:
< 50 rad/C

Misalignment
residues:
< 60 rad

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Temperature modeling Misalignment: Statistical distribution

Misalignment temperature slope distribution: < 50 rad/C

Misalignment residues distribution: < 60 rad

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Short-term bias stability under warm-up

Controlled within +/-10 g data averaged over 1s

under warm-up condition
with a 10g FS sensor
 1 ppm bias stability

Limited warm-up transient

left after thermal
compensation

Warm-up potential after low-
pass filtering over 160s &
time derivation
8g/mn (obtained over a larger
sample)
Compliant with gyrocompass
alignment requirements

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 Bias stability: Temporal, Allan Variance, PSD
Bias stability / Allan variance

10 sec of data observation is
enough to get micro-g signal
precision

Signal stability is guaranteed at external vibrations
observation time of at least up noises
to 300 sec

Bias instability
(Random flicker
noise)

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Vibrations: 2nd order non-linearity (K2)

Non-linearity (K2)

K2(f) device to device
repeatability

K2 < 10 g/g2 (0 to 100 Hz)

K2 < 20 g/g2 (up to 1 kHz)

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Performance review
Value Unit Comment
Full scale range 15 g typ.
Noise 1 g/
Hz typ.
Bias stability (K0)
Short-term (under warm-up) 8 g/mn
Temperature bias slope 150 g/C max
Temperature residues 300 g After 3rd order polynomial curve fitting

Scale Factor (K1)

K1 Temperature slope 100 ppm/C
K1 residues 200 ppm After 3rd order polynomial curve fitting

Misalignment (Kp)
Kp Temperature slope 50 rad/C
Kp residues 60 rad After 3rd order polynomial curve fitting

Vibration (K2) 10 / 20 g/g2 [0; 100] Hz / [100; 1000] Hz

Shock resistance 4000 g
Power consumption 100 mW
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Conclusions

The combination of MEMS pendular and sigma/delta allows "medium

navigation grade" class performances with gyrocompass functions.
Bias stability
 8 g/min bias stability under warm-up condition
 300 g of residues
Scale factor
 200 ppm residues

MEMS based accelerometer highlights

High shock tolerance
Low weight
Size
Cost (Batch manufacturing process)

The next developments will focus on packaging and system integration.

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 Thank you for your attention

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