ACCELERATION SENSOR WITH INTEGRATED COMPENSATION OF TEMPERATURE EFFECTS FABRICATED BY THE LIGA PROCESS

Combination of the LIGA process with a sacrificial layer technique off ers the possibility of fabricating in one process sequence metal capac itive acceleration sensors with a movable seismic mass and stationary electrodes on top of the same substrate. The process allows micromecha nical devices with a free geometry to be designed. Use has been made o f this advantage to fabricate extremely temperature-resistant accelera tion sensors. Temperature resistance is achieved by designing the sens or partly with a positive and partly with a negative temperature coeff icient. The design presented here is for a 1 g sensor with a measured temperature coefficient of offset (TCO) of 1.02 X 10(-4) g/K in the te mperature range - 10-100-degrees-C.