Study of First-Order Thermal Sigma-Delta Architecture for Convective Accelerometers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel first-order thermal sigma-delta architecture for convective accelerometers, leveraging thermal behavior for analog-to-digital conversion to enhance sensor performance.

Contribution

It presents an original closed-loop conditioning method using a thermal sigma-delta modulator integrated on CMOS technology.

Findings

Successful implementation of a thermal sigma-delta modulator

Improved sensor performance through feedback scheme

Integration on standard CMOS process

Abstract

This paper presents the study of an original closed-loop conditioning approach for fully-integrated convective inertial sensors. The method is applied to an accelerometer manufactured on a standard CMOS technology using an auto-aligned bulk etching step. Using the thermal behavior of the sensor as a summing function, a first order sigma-delta modulator is built. This "electro-physical" modulator realizes an analog-to-digital conversion of the signal. Besides the feedback scheme should improve the sensor performance.