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Abstract—This paper presents the development of an solutions grow rapidly, especially for the inertial measurement
8-in six-degree-of-freedom (DOF) inertial sensor based on units (IMUs), which usually include three-axis accelerometers
an advanced capacitive inertial sensor fabrication plat- and three-axis gyroscopes [6]–[8]. IMUs are widely used for
form. The platform integrates three-axis gyroscopes and
three-axis accelerometers on the same chip. The fabricated many applications, such as GPS-aiding, offshore navigation,
sensors are vacuum packaged at the wafer level with a drilling, and platform stabilization [9], [10]. However, more
polysilicon-based through-silicon interposer (TSI) using the than 75% of the MEMS IMU market is dominated by the
aluminum–germanium eutectic bonding approach. Wafer- major players, such as STMicroelectronics, Bosch Sensortec,
level measurement results indicate that a fabrication yield
InvenSense, Freescale, etc. [10]–[13]. Besides the revenue, the
of greater than 92% and a vacuum level of ∼100 mtorr
have been achieved. The fabricated inertial sensors and the main barrier of entry for new players is the availability of the
customized application-specific integrated circuits are en- mass-producible process platform for six-degree-of-freedom
capsulated in a 5 mm × 5 mm × 1.3 mm quad-flat no-leads (DOF) or nine-DOF inertial sensors, which requires the
package using the plastic molding technology. The system- platform to have the following features:
level characterization of the developed six-DOF inertial 1) both in-plane and out-of-plane sensing capabilities [5];
sensors have been implemented. Several reliability tests
conducted according to the relevant JEDEC standards 2) wafer-level encapsulation for protection of movable mi-
prove that the packaged sensors are highly reliable and ro- cromechanical structures;
bust for a wide range of operating environments. 3) wafer-level vacuum packaging for improving the perfor-
Index Terms—Accelerometer, aluminum–germanium (Al– mance of IMU sensors [14], [15].
Ge) bonding, gyroscope, inertial sensors, mircoelectrome- In this paper, we report the development and evaluation of six-
chanical systems (MEMS), through-silicon interposers DOF inertial sensors based on an 8-in advanced inertial sensor
(TSIs), wafer-level vacuum packaging. fabrication. In Section II, the details of inertial sensor fabrica-
tion platform are presented. The design and simulation of the
I. INTRODUCTION
reported six-DOF inertial sensors are described in Section III.
ICROELECTROMECHANICAL system (MEMS)
M inertial sensors are ubiquitous in the consumer and in-
dustry fields due to their compact size, low power, and good per-
Then, the fabrication of the inertial sensors is presented in
Section IV. Section V illustrates the measurement results of the
fabricated inertial sensors. The details of assembly and pack-
formance [1]–[5]. Recently, the demands for a single accelero- aging of the fabricated sensors are elaborated in Section VI.
meter and a single gyroscope have declined in the consumer Section VII reported the reliability evaluations for the packaged
and automotive markets. Meanwhile the demands for combo sensors. Finally, Section VIII concludes this paper.
TABLE I
COMPARISON OF THE REPORTED INERTIAL SENSOR PLATFORM WITH THE EXISTING PLATFORMS
Fig. 5. Photograph of the diced wafer-level vacuum-packaged six-DOF Fig. 7. Measured relative resistance changes of the Pirani gauge in an
inertial sensors. 8-in wafer. According to the reference curve, a vacuum level of less than
100 mtorr has been achieved.
TABLE II
PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF THE DEVELOPED SIX-DOF INERTIAL SENSORS WITH THE COMMERCIAL AVAILABLE INERTIAL SENSORS
B. TC Test
In this work, the TC reliability tests and analysis are con-
ducted to verify the reliability and robust of the wafer-level
vacuum bonding quality. Five hundred thermal cycles are im-
plemented to verify the long-term stability of the packaged de-
Fig. 11. Assembly and packaging of the inertial sensors. (a) Packaging vices placed under outdoor ambient conditions. The temperature
concept. (b) Photograph of a packaged inertial sensors. (c) X-ray image
of the packaged three-axis accelerometer.
condition ranges from −40 to 125 ◦ C with a ramp rate of approx-
imately 15 ◦ C/min and a dwell time of 15 min at the two extreme
temperatures. The details can be referred to the JESD22-A104D
as shown in Fig. 11(a). The photograph of the packaged inertial standard. After 500 thermal cycles, the packaged chips are tested
chips is shown in Fig. 11(b). The size of the packaged chip is at room temperature. The measurement results of the TC test
5 mm × 5 mm × 1.3 mm. Fig. 11(c) shows an X-ray image are shown in Fig. 12(b).
of the packaged three-axis accelerometer chip. The lead frame
and the wire-bonding connections between the MEMS and the C. HTS Test
ASIC can be clearly seen.
The HTS test is used to check the effect of time and temper-
ature under the unbiased storage conditions in order to inves-
VII. RELIABILITY EVALUATION
tigate the thermally activated failure mechanisms. The storage
The fabricated inertial sensor is packaged with a dummy temperature is +150 ◦ C for 500 h, according to JESD22-A103D
ASIC die to simulate the real packaging situations. The pack- standard. After 500 h, the packaged chips are tested at the room
aged devices are evaluated by the mechanical shock (MS), tem- temperature. The measurement results of the HTS test after
perature cycling (TC), high-temperature storage (HTS), and 500 h are shown in Fig. 12(c).
highly accelerated stress test (HAST) in order to assess the
reliability of the packaged devices. Fifteen packaged chips D. HAST Evaluation
(five three-axis accelerometers, five X/Y -axis gyroscopes, and
five Z-axis gyroscopes) are evaluated for each test. We tested the A HAST is performed to evaluate the reliability of packaged
C–V responses for the three-axis accelerometers and frequency devices under a controlled humidity and temperature environ-
response for the X/Y -axis and Z-axis gyroscope. ment. In this work, the HAST is performed at a temperature of
130 ◦ C and a relative humidity of 85% for 96 h as per JEDEC
standard JESD22-A110-B. After the HAST, the measured reso-
A. MS Test nant frequency drifts of the three-axis gyroscopes are less than
The MS test is implemented to investigate the fragility of ±0.5%, as illustrated in Fig. 12(d). It indicates that all the tested
products and to evaluate protective packaging. In this work, devices did not experience any moisture ingress or delamination
the shock test condition is for a total of three shock pulses, even after 96 h of HAST.
each at a peak of 1500 G. After the MS test, the packaged In summary, all the tested devices have passed the MS, TC,
chips are measured at the room temperature, and the measured HTS, and HAST, as shown in Fig. 12. No failure mechanism
results are compared with the ones before the MS test. The is observed. These measured reliability evaluation results verify
measurement results of the MS test are shown in Fig. 12(a). The the reliability and robustness of the fabricated sensors and the
resonant frequency variations for the gyroscopes are less than packaging.
WU et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF SIX-DOF INERTIAL SENSORS WITH AN 8-IN ADVANCED MEMS FABRICATION PLATFORM 3841
Fig. 12. Resonant frequency variations of the three-axis gyroscope and the static capacitance changes of one pair of electrodes of the three-axis
accelerometers after the four reliability evaluations: (a) MS; (b) TC; (c) HTS; and (d) HAST, respectively.
VIII. CONCLUSION [6] H. Sun et al., “A monolithic inertial measurement unit fabricated with
improved DRIE post-CMOS process,” in Proc. IEEE Sens. Conf., 2010,
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