A high-G silicon carbide vertical capacitive micromachined accelerometer

Abstract

A micromachined acceleration sensor for high-g detection is presented, which introduces silicon carbide as a mechanical material. The sensor structure itself consists of a fixed capacitor and a changeable one whose top plate moves perpendicular to the chip surface. The external acceleration can be obtained by measuring the change of the capacitance. Conventional surface micro-machining technologies are enough for the fabrication of the sensor. A basic theoretical model is given out, which is then used to calculate the vital performance parameters of the sensor. The theoretical measuring range is about 0–110kG. In addition, two theoretical results are compared with the simulation ones obtained by ANSYS.