Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal

MICRO ELECTRO MECHANICAL SYSTEMS (ICE 447)
AUG DEC 2014
Assignment Sheet 1

1. A micro pressure sensor is intended to use piezoresistive transduction with the membrane
specification provided in table1. Choose appropriate membrane geometry and calculate the
following:
i. Displacement sensitivity
ii. Stress Sensitivity
2. A micro pressure sensor with capacitive transduction needs to be designed for the data
provided in table 1. Select appropriate membrane geometry and calculate the following:
i. Displacement sensitivity
ii. Stress Sensitivity
3. A circular membrane capacitive micro pressure sensor with radius 300m, thickness 60m is
developed with an initial air gap of 17 microns. If it is used to sense a maximum pressure of
50MPa, calculate its maximum capacitance. Assume a capacitive bridge is used to convert
the change in capacitance to voltage output with a bias voltage of 5V, calculate the output
sensitivity in terms of input pressure with a resolution of 5MPa.
4. A square membrane piezoresistive micro pressure sensor is developed with Wheatstone
bridge circuit. The initial resistance is 2K and varies to maximum value of 2.5K for a
pressure range of 10MPa to 40MPa. Assume a bias voltage of 5V, calculate the output
sensitivity in terms of input pressure.
5. Write a note on chemical sensors and its classification using various transduction methods.

Table 1
Pressure range

0 40 MPa

Size of the membrane

100 to 500 m

Thickness of the membrane

20 to 200 m