MEMS Vibratory Gyroscopes

Structural Approaches to Improve Robustness

MEMS Reference Shelf
Series Editors:

Stephen D. Senturia Roger T. Howe

Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emeritus Department of Electrical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stanford University
Cambridge, Massachusetts Stanford, California

Antonio J. Ricco
Small Satellite Division
NASA Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, California

MEMS Vibratory Gyroscopes Structural Approaches to Improve Robustness

Cenk Acar and Andrei Shkel
ISBN: 978-0-387-09535-6

BioNanoFluidic MEMS
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Microfluidic Technologies for Miniaturized Analysis Systems

Edited by Steffen Hardt and Friedhelm Schöenfeld, eds.
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Self-assembly from Nano to Milli Scales

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Olav Solgaard
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Kimberly L. Turner and Peter G. Hartwell
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Andrei M. Shkel
ISBN 978-0-387-35540-5
Cenk Acar and Andrei Shkel

MEMS Vibratory Gyroscopes

Structural Approaches to Improve Robustness
Cenk Acar
Systron Donner Automotive
2700 Systron Drive
Concord, CA 94518-1399

Andrei Shkel
University of California, Irvine
Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
4200 Engineering Gateway Building
Irvine, CA 92697-3975

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008932165

ISBN 978-0-387-09535-6 e-ISBN 978-0-387-09536-3

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To my beloved wife Şebnem Acar, and my
dear parents.
Preface

Merging electrical and mechanical systems at a micro scale, Microelectromechani-

cal Systems (MEMS) technology has revolutionized inertial sensors. Since the first
demonstration of a micromachined gyroscope by the Draper Laboratory in 1991,
various micromachined gyroscope designs fabricated in surface micromachining,
bulk micromachining, hybrid surface-bulk micromachining technologies or alterna-
tive fabrication techniques have been reported. Inspired by the promising success
of micromachined accelerometers in the same era, extensive research efforts to-
wards commercial micromachined gyroscopes led to several innovative gyroscope
topologies, fabrication and integration approaches, and detection techniques. Con-
sequently, vibratory micromachined gyroscopes that utilize vibrating elements to in-
duce and detect Coriolis force have been effectively implemented and demonstrated
in various micromachining-based batch fabrication processes. However, achieving
robustness against fabrication variations and environmental fluctuations still re-
mains as one of the greatest challenges in commercialization and high-volume pro-
duction of micromachined vibratory rate gyroscopes.
The limitations of the photolithography-based micromachining technologies de-
fine the upper-bound on the performance and robustness of micromachined gyro-
scopes. Conventional gyroscope designs based on matching or near-matching the
drive and sense mode resonant frequencies are quite sensitive to variations in oscil-
latory system parameters. Thus, producing stable and reliable vibratory microma-
chined gyroscopes have proven to be extremely challenging, primarily due to the
high sensitivity of the dynamical system response to fabrication and environmental
variations.
In the first part of this book, we review the Coriolis effect and angular rate
sensors, and fundamental operational principles of micromachined vibratory gy-
roscopes. We review basic mechanical and electrical design and implementation
practices, system-level architectures, and common fabrication methods utilized for
MEMS gyroscopes and inertial sensors in general. We also discuss electrical and
mechanical parasitic effects such as structural imperfections, and analyze their im-
pact on the sensing element dynamics.

vii
viii Preface

In the second part, we review recent results of the study on design concepts that
explore the possibility of shifting the complexity from the control electronics to the
structural design of the gyroscope dynamical system. The fundamental approach
is to develop structural designs and dynamical systems for micromachined gyro-
scopes that provide inherent robustness against structural and environmental param-
eter variations. In this context, we primarily focus on obtaining a gain and phase
stable region in the drive and sense-mode frequency responses in order to achieve
overall system robustness. Operating in the stable drive and sense frequency regions
provides improved bias stability, temperature stability, and immunity to environ-
mental and fabrication variations. Toward this goal, two major design concepts are
investigated: expanding the dynamic system design space by increasing the degree-
of-freedom of the drive and sense mode oscillatory system, and utilizing an array of
drive-mode oscillators with incrementally spaced resonant frequencies.
This book provides a solid foundation in the fundamental theory, design and im-
plementation of micromachined vibratory rate gyroscopes, and introduces a new
paradigm in MEMS gyroscope sensing element design, where disturbance-rejection
capability is achieved by the mechanical system instead of active control and com-
pensation strategies. The micromachined gyroscopes of this class are expected to
lead to reliable, robust and high performance angular-rate sensors with low pro-
duction costs and high yields, fitting into or enabling many applications in the
aerospace/defense, automotive and consumer electronics markets.

June 2008 Cenk Acar, Andrei Shkel

Contents

Part I Fundamentals of Micromachined Vibratory Gyroscopes

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 The Coriolis Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Gyroscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 The MEMS Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Micromachined Vibratory Rate Gyroscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5 Applications of MEMS Gyroscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.6 Gyroscope Performance Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.7 A Survey of Prior Work on MEMS Gyroscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.8 The Robustness Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.9 Inherently Robust Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.10 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

2 Fundamentals of Micromachined Gyroscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2.1 Dynamics of Vibratory Rate Gyroscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.1 Linear Gyroscope Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.2 Torsional Gyroscope Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2 Resonance Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3 Drive-Mode Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.4 The Coriolis Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4.1 Mode-Matching and ∆ f . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.4.2 Phase Relations and Proof-Mass Trajectory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

3 Fabrication Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Microfabrication Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1.1 Photolithography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.1.2 Deposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.1.3 Etching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.1.4 Wafer Bonding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

ix
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3.2 Bulk Micromachining Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

3.2.1 SOI-Based Bulk Micromachining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.2.2 Silicon-on-Glass Bulk Micromachining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.3 Surface-Micromachining Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.4 Combined Surface-Bulk Micromachining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.5 CMOS Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.5.1 Hybrid Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.5.2 Monolithic Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.6 Packaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.6.1 Wafer-Level Packaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.6.2 Vacuum Packaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

4 Mechanical Design of MEMS Gyroscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

4.1 Mechanical Structure Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.2 Linear Vibratory Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.2.1 Linear Suspension Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.2.2 Linear Flexure Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3 Torsional Vibratory Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.3.1 Torsional Suspension Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.3.2 Torsional Flexure Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.4 Anisoelasticity and Quadrature Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.4.1 Quadrature Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.5 Damping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.5.1 Viscous Damping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.5.2 Viscous Anisodamping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.5.3 Intrinsic Structural Damping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4.6 Material Properties of Silicon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
4.7 Design for Robustness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.7.1 Yield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.7.2 Vibration Immunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.7.3 Shock Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.7.4 Temperature Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

5 Electrical Design of MEMS Gyroscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.2 Basics of Capacitive Electrodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.3 Electrostatic Actuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.3.1 Variable-Gap Actuators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.3.2 Variable-Area Actuators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.3.3 Balanced Actuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.4 Capacitive Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.4.1 Variable-Gap Capacitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.4.2 Variable-Area Capacitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Contents xi

5.4.3 Differential Sensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

5.5 Capacitance Enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.5.1 Gap Reduction by Fabrication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.5.2 Post-Fabrication Capacitance Enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.6 MEMS Gyroscope Testing and Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.6.1 Frequency Response Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.6.2 Capacitive Sense-Mode Detection Circuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.6.3 Rate-Table Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Part II Structural Approaches to Improve Robustness

6 Linear Multi-DOF Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
6.2 Fundamentals of 2-DOF Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
6.3 The 2-DOF Sense-Mode Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
6.3.1 Gyroscope Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
6.3.2 Coriolis Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.3.3 Illustrative Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
6.3.4 Conclusions on the 2-DOF Sense-Mode Architecture . . . . . . 157
6.4 The 2-DOF Drive-Mode Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
6.4.1 Gyroscope Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.4.2 Dynamical Amplification in the Drive-Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6.4.3 Illustrative Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
6.4.4 Conclusions on the 2-DOF Drive-Mode Architecture . . . . . . 165
6.5 The 4-DOF System Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
6.5.1 The Coriolis Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
6.5.2 Dynamics of the 4-DOF Gyroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
6.5.3 Parameter Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
6.5.4 Illustrative Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
6.5.5 Conclusions on the 4-DOF System Architecture . . . . . . . . . . 179
6.6 Demonstration of 2-DOF Oscillator Robustness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
6.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

7 Torsional Multi-DOF Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
7.2 Torsional 3-DOF Gyroscope Structure and Theory of Operation . . . . 189
7.2.1 The Coriolis Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
7.2.2 Gyroscope Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
7.2.3 Cross-Axis Sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
7.3 Illustration of a MEMS Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
7.3.1 Suspension Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
7.3.2 Finite Element Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
7.3.3 Electrostatic Actuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
7.3.4 Optimization of System Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
xii Contents

7.3.5 Sensitivity and Robustness Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

7.4 Experimental Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
7.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

8 Distributed-Mass Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
8.2 The Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
8.2.1 The Coriolis Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
8.2.2 Wide-Bandwidth Operation for Improving Robustness . . . . . 211
8.3 Theoretical Analysis of the Trade-offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
8.4 Illustrative Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
8.4.1 Prototype Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
8.4.2 Experimental Characterization Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
8.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

9 Conclusions and Future Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
9.2 Comparative Analysis of the Presented Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
9.2.1 2-DOF Oscillator in the Sense-Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
9.2.2 2-DOF Oscillator in the Drive-Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
9.2.3 Multiple Drive-Mode Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
9.3 Demonstration of Improved Robustness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
9.3.1 Temperature Dependence of Drive and Sense-Modes . . . . . . 228
9.3.2 Rate-Table Characterization Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
9.3.3 Comparison of Response with a Conventional Gyroscope . . 231
9.4 Scale Factor Trade-off Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
9.5 Future Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
9.5.1 Anti-Phase 2-DOF Sense Mode Gyroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
9.5.2 2-DOF Sense Mode Gyroscope with Scalable Peak Spacing 242
9.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255