518 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 10, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2001 Design and Fabrication of Submicrometer, Single Crystal Si Accelerometer Jason W. Weigold, Member, IEEE, Khalil Najafi, Fellow, IEEE, and Stella W. Pang, Fellow, IEEE Abstract—A lateral accelerometer has been designed, simulated, and fabricated using a 3-mask high-aspect ratio technology. Electron beam lithography and high-density plasma etching in an inductively coupled plasma source enabled aspect ratios 30 to be achieved. This makes possible beams with very small spring constants. Combining the ability to measure very small displacement of a proof mass due to narrow capacitive gaps between comb fingers, a highly sensitive accelerometer can be obtained. The fabricated accelerometer with 1 m beams and 0.2 m comb gaps had a spring constant of 0.127 N/m, which is close to the calculated values of 0.146 N/m. Based on the capacitance measurements, the accelerometer sensitivity is calculated to be 6.3 fF/g. Reducing the beam width to 0.4 m lowered the spring constant to 0.03 N/m, and an improved equivalent sensitivity of 79.2 fF/g is calculated. The minimum detectable acceleration is on the order of a few microgravity over a range of hundreds of gravities. [612] Index Terms—Accelerometer, deep etching, electron beam lithography, MEMS, silicon. I. INTRODUCTION T HERE are fairly simple processes available to fabricate medium performance acceleration sensors capable of detecting milligravity (mg) acceleration signals [1]–[3]. However, to obtain devices with noise floors in the microgravity ( g) range, fabrication becomes more complicated in order to add features and gain performance [4]–[7]. The use of single crystal Si can increase the quality factor of the sensor which would allow decreased thermo-mechanical noise due to the force of gas molecules pushing against the sensor structure [8]. This noise is probably the performance-limiting factor in many g accelerometers. Also, the high-aspect ratios obtained using electron beam lithography and high-density plasma etching allow very small capacitive gaps to be fabricated and very small sensor motion to be detected [9]–[11]. This increases the sensitivity of the device and makes possible the measurement of g acceleration signals. There are many transduction methods currently used in acceleration sensors, such as capacitive and tunneling displacement transducers [12]–[16]. In this work, capacitive transduction was used in order to gain performance from capacitive gaps patterned using submicrometer lithography. Accelerometers have been designed which benefit from these improvements. These devices have been fabricated and tested in Manuscript received August 2, 2000; revised April 21, 2001. This work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. Subject Editor D.-I. Cho. The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2122 USA (e-mail: pang@eecs.umich.edu; najafi@umich.edu). Publisher Item Identifier S 1057-7157(01)05870-X. order to verify the performance gains provided by the new technology. Surface micromachined accelerometers are available commercially in high volumes with typical noise floors of 500 to [17]. This noise floor makes possible detec7000 g/Hz tion of mg signals, but no less. These accelerometers are fabricated using similar technology to the proposed accelerometer so that comparisons may be made. This device has a 0.1 microgram proof mass with 1.3 m gaps between comb fingers. It has a rest capacitance of 10 fF and a capacitance change of 20 aF can be detected which translates to a 0.02-nm movement of the proof mass. New high performance accelerometers have also been fabricated but are not yet commercially available. An accelerometer has been fabricated using silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers with a 52 microgram proof mass, a rest capacitance of 9.7 pF, and a resonant frequency of 3 kHz [18]. The noise floor of this accelerometer was measured to be 25 g/Hz . These accelerometers with integrated readout circuitry can be mass produced at low cost. In this work, a high-sensitivity accelerometer is designed which takes advantage of submicrometer lithography and high-density plasma etching to gain performance over existing accelerometers. The single crystal Si accelerometer is fabricated from the surface and requires no wafer bonding or backside processing. It is 3 m thick with 0.2 m comb gaps and compatible with integrated circuit (IC) processing techniques. The design methodology for this accelerometer will be described, followed by simulation of the sensor structure and sensor fabrication. Finally, test results which highlight the operation and performance gains of the new design will be presented. II. EXPERIMENT The sensors were fabricated using a simple 3-mask process which is shown schematically in Fig. 1. This process is completely compatible with previously developed processes which integrate the sensor with conventional circuitry with the addition to the circuit process of a single mask [11]. However, in order to first demonstrate sensor performance gains, the circuitry was not included. The process begins with a B diffusion into an n-type Si wafer. Heavily B-doped layer is formed by a B diffusion using a solid boron nitride source at 1175 C for 30 min with 3 standard liters per minute of N and 250 sccm of O to form a 3 m thick layer with a B concentration of cm . These p p B doped microstructures have some intrinsic stress and could 1057–7157/01$10.00 © 2001 IEEE WEIGOLD et al.: SUBMICROMETER, SINGLE CRYSTAL Si ACCELEROMETER Fig. 1. 519 A schematic process flow for fabrication of the acceleration sensor with Al bond pads. introduce beam tip deflection for cantilevered beams [19]. However, for our accelerometer design and for many other sensor apmicrostructures have been used without stress plications, p related problems. The B diffusion determines the thickness of the final device and in this case is 3 m. Next, a 1- m-thick Al layer is lifted off to form the Al bond pads as well as to serve as alignment marks in the electron beam lithography system. A low temperature oxide (LTO) layer is deposited in a low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) furnace and patterned to cover the Al bond pads. The 900 nm thick LTO is deposited at 420 C with a pressure of 360 mtorr for 110 min. This will protect the bond pads from the release etch in ethylenediamine pyrocatechol (EDP). Electron beam lithography is then used to pattern polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) to define the accelerometers with submicrometer beams and comb gaps. The 950 K molecular weight PMMA resist was baked at 180 C for 30 min, giving a final resist thickness of 400 nm. The PMMA was then exposed to a 50 keV electron beam with a typical dose of 274 C/cm . The exposed resist was then developed in a 1 : 1 solution of methylisobutylketone and isopropyl alcohol (IPA) for 1 min followed by a 1 min rinse in IPA. This patterned resist is used to lift off a 230-nm-thick evaporated Ni dry-etch masking layer. A deep Si etch is performed in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) system using 80 W source power and 100 W stage power at 1 mtorr with 10 sccm of Cl flow and a source to sample distance of 13 cm. This etch condition is chosen to provide a vertical etch profile for submicrometer beams and combs. The dry etch time to completely etch through the 3 m B diffused layer was about 45 min. Next, the samples are etched in EDP for 15 min to release the structures, since EDP can selectively etch the lightly doped n-type Si underneath the 3 m thick p layer. Finally the Ni mask is removed in HCl and the LTO is removed in BHF. In this case the BHF etch was carefully timed so that the Al bond pads would not get attacked. This was found to work well but must be characterized carefully and test etches must be performed. In order to ease this process, a wet oxide etch that does not etch Al could be used, or the oxide could be removed through a dry etch. Even though the release etch was performed in liquid, stiction of the movable structure to the fixed structure or substrate was not observed. This could be due to the large separation between the movable structure and the substrate below it. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A. Accelerometer Design Preliminary calculations have been performed to estimate device characteristics which might limit the detectable acceleration. Fig. 2 shows an acceleration sensing structure which can be used to calculate basic limitations and device characteristics. Using a 3- m-thick proof mass, the mass of the sensor can be calculated. 5 5 m holes in the proof mass are included in order to allow the undercutting and release of the structure using the EDP etch. The holes are spaced at a period of 8.5 m and rotated 45 relative to the manhattanized layout. These dimensions will allow the large proof mass to be completely released in just a 15-min EDP etch. The volume of the proof mass is calm and the mass is calculated to be culated to be kg, or about 9.0 micrograms. If we assume that a comb array is used to sense motion and that the comb fingers are 2 m wide with 0.1 m gaps between them, we can calculate the nominal capacitance and the minimum resolvable movement of the mass. Using these dimensions, we have enough room for 807 comb fingers. Note that not only do the small comb gaps increase sensitivity by increasing the capacitance change, but also allow more fingers per area to be included. We will assume a nominal finger overlap of 5 m, although this could be increased or decreased in order to change the nominal capacitance. If we assume that we can detect 0.1 fF 520 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 10, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2001 difference in thermal expansion coefficient between the sensor structure and the material to which it is anchored. However, since this device is made of Si and the substrate is also Si, both will expand and contract at the same rate with varying temperature, and the output should remain stable over temperature. The comb drive on this sensor utilizes a varying overlap area for capacitance change. This is often not used because the capacitance change is inversely proportional to the gap between combs as shown in (3) [21]: (3) Fig. 2. A schematic of a 1 mm by 3 mm die containing the acceleration sensor. The proof mass is 970 m wide, 1795 m long, and the thickness can be varied. changes in capacitance, then this translates to a minimum detectable sensor movement of 0.12 nm. Assuming dual 0.2- m-wide, 3- m-thick, and 2000- m-long suspension beams, we can calculate a spring constant ( ) of 0.00093 N/m. A Young’s modulus of 150 GPa is assumed. Using Hook’s law, the minimum detectable force ( ) of N is obtained. This provides a minimum dem/s or about 1.3 g tectable acceleration of resolution. The resonant frequency of this device is about 51.2 Hz with a sensitivity of 75.99 pF/g. With such a high-capacitance sensitivity, the noise floor of the device may be limited by thermo-mechanical noise caused by gas molecules pushing against the structure. The noise equivalent acceleration ( ) due to Brownian motion of gas molecules is given by [8] (1) is the Boltzmann constant and is equal to J/K and is the temperature and is assumed to be 300 K. The damping term for one finger, , is given by the following equation [20]: where (2) where viscosity of air and is equal to kg/m-s; area of the comb finger overlap and is equal to 3 m 5 m; gap between comb fingers. This damping term assumes a Couette-type damper model which is appropriate in this type of comb drive. However, this is only an approximation and this model assumes a plate with the velocity of the fluid on one side of the plate decaying linearly to zero at the boundary. The two sides of the comb were taken into account by multiplying the damping term by 2 for each side of the comb and then multiplying by the number of combs. This should give a good approximation for the damping term, . Using these methods, the Brownian noise limit is calculated to be 4.4 g/Hz . This structure has some advantages that make it particularly strong in certain applications. Since the substrate and the sensor are both made of single crystal Si, it is expected that the sensor performance will be less sensitive to temperature variations. Typically, sensor output will vary with temperature due to the In a comb utilizing a varying gap instead of varying overlap area, the capacitance change is inversely proportional to the square of the gap which will provide a higher sensitivity: (4) Also, since the gap varies, the combs can be made long to increase the capacitance change. However, since the gaps utilized here are so small, adequate capacitance change can be achieved with the varying area comb drive and its advantages can be exploited. One advantage of this type of comb drive is that the pull-in voltage can be made very large. As the length of the comb fingers is increased, the pull-in voltage can be increased. The only limit to this occurs when the comb fingers are too long, they become less stiff in the off axis direction and can pull-in with off axis acceleration. However, if they are kept stiff, large accelerometer displacement can occur without any change in sensitivity. This large displacement was simulated and accelerations as high as 1000 g could be tolerated before the maximum stress in the device reached the yield strength of 7 GPa for Si. This allows an extremely sensitive accelerometer with a very large dynamic range to be fabricated with minimum detectable accelerations on the order of a few g while being able to measure over a range of hundreds of g. This will probably be limited by the detection circuit capability to resolve a small capacitance change over a large background capacitance. B. Finite Element Simulation of Accelerometer Simulation using finite element methods has been performed to verify mechanical behavior of the structure as well as to optimize accelerometer design. The commercially available finite element simulation program, ANSYS 5.5, has been used for the mechanical simulation [22]. During operation of the device, the plate will remain fairly rigid due to its large stiffness. The etch holes distributed throughout the plate will make it slightly less rigid. In order to simplify the simulation, the etch holes were lumped together into one large hole in the middle of the plate. The plate would remain rigid, but the mass would be equivalent to the mass of the actual device. Combs were omitted for simplicity from this model. The combs will add some mass to the structure, however, this mass is small compared to the mass of the plate, so it can be neglected for initial simulations. The simulated structure with lumped etch holes is shown in Fig. 3(a). A close-up of the beam attachment to the plate is shown in Fig. 3(b) with meshing completed. The simulations are modeled using a 3 m thick, 1015 835 m plate with 4 beams that are WEIGOLD et al.: SUBMICROMETER, SINGLE CRYSTAL Si ACCELEROMETER 521 C. Fabrication Results Fig. 3. Simulated structure without comb fingers showing (a) the etch holes lumped together in the plate center for simplification of simulation and (b) a close-up of the attachment of beam to plate after meshing. each 1228 m long and 0.5 m wide. The hole in the middle is 305 305 m to correctly model the mass of the plate. Simulation can be performed to determine the positions of the resonant modes as well as the force required to fracture the device and the device’s reaction to gravity. From these, spring constant and sensitivity can also be extracted. When simulated, this device was broken into 58 739 elements and the mass was kg. A modal analysis took about 5 min to extract the first 5 resonant modes. The modes were at 360, 1091, 3029, 4571, and 39 944 Hz. The first mode was the desired mode of vibration in the direction. The second mode was vibration in the -axis and the third and fourth modes were torsional. The fifth mode which is way above the others, is a vibration of the springs alone. The spring constant was calculated to be 0.027 N/m from the simulation. Problems were encountered when trying to simulate high aspect ratio beams with a narrow beam width. Since the accelerometer structure is quite large, the number of elements increases rapidly. For beams with a very high aspect ratio, a large number of elements must be used to satisfy aspect ratio specifications of the software. Elements with high aspect ratios cause larger errors in simulation, therefore, multiple elements with a lower aspect ratio must be used. A large number of elements has a large memory requirement and the software package used also has a maximum element limit. Fig. 4 shows a die photo of the completely released accelerometer. The surface around the structure shows texturing from the EDP release etch. This is visible under the optical microscope, however, when viewed under the scanning electron microscope, the surface is quite smooth as shown in Fig. 5. The accelerometer was completely released after 25 min in EDP and was verified to be functional through electrical testing. The suspended structure is shown in Fig. 5(a). The proof mass can be seen suspended by one of the four beams and the Al bond pad is in the top of the figure. The comb fingers are also visible which provide drive capability and also serve to electrically sense the motion of the structure. In Fig. 5(b), a higher magnification of the comb fingers shows the vertical profile and submicrometer gaps generated by etching the high aspect ratio resonators in Cl . These comb drives are 3 m thick with 0.2 m gaps in between. If the structure is left in EDP for a long time, the whole structure will undercut and the anchored areas will release from the substrate. The structure has been designed so that the whole device will be totally released in only 15 min in EDP. However, undercut of the bond pads is still undesirable because an undercut bond pad will not have the mechanical strength that a completely anchored one would. Fig. 6(a) shows a bond pad without corner compensation. The pad is undercut even after 25 min in EDP. However, corner compensation structures on the corners of the bondpad as shown in Fig. 6(b) will prevent the EDP from undercutting at the corners. This will provide a strong anchor for the structure, and will also make wire bonding to the pad easier and resistant to fracture. D. Accelerometer Testing and Performance Analysis Testing of the released accelerometers was performed. Since the structure is designed to be very sensitive to small forces, it can be pulled in quite easily. The pull-in voltage for the structure with 1- m-wide beams was found to be 5 V. For the pull-in voltage of 5 V, the structure was displaced by 6 m. From this pull-in voltage and the geometry of the structure, the force ( ) on one of the plates of the capacitor per finger is given by (5) where dielectric constant of the material between the comb fingers; thickness of the structure; gap between comb fingers; voltage placed across the comb. N and this is multiplied The force is calculated to be by 2 for the two plates on each side of the movable finger and again by 230 for one set of combs. This gives a total force apN. Using Hooke’s Law and a deflection of plied of 6 m for pull in, this gives a spring constant of 0.127 N/m which is very close to the simulated spring constant of 0.146 N/m for the 1- m-wide beams of this particular fabricated device. A dc voltage was applied to the device across one set of combs to provide a known force and the capacitance change 522 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 10, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2001 Fig. 4. Die photo showing the whole accelerometer structure. 2 Fig. 5. (a) Scanning electron micrograph of a completely released accelerometer structure. The structure is completely released after a 25-min EDP etch. The combs are visible and connected to the Al bond pads. (b) Higher magnification of the comb drive showing the 3-m-thick high-aspect ratio comb fingers with 0.2 m gaps in between. is measured. An accelerometer with 0.4- m-wide beams and 0.2- m-wide comb gaps was tested. The voltage across the combs was set to 2.5 V and swept to 0 V in steps of 0.1 V. The capacitance at each point was measured and a plot of this capacitance–voltage ( – ) curve is shown in Fig. 7. Negative voltages must be applied so that the p /n diodes are kept reverse biased. The reverse leakage current was measured to be in the A range and it does not affect the measurement of [11]. The junction capacitance varies junction capacitance, decreased from 6.7 pF with bias voltage and it was found that at 0 V to 2.7 pF at 2.5 V. Therefore, this junction capacitance will serve to mask the sensitivity during – measurements. Fig. 6. Micrographs of (a) a 50 50 m bond pad without corner compensation after 25 min in EDP and (b) the same pad with corner compensation. The pad with corner compensation is not undercut and provides good mechanical support for the wire bond as well as the accelerometer anchor. However, under normal device operation, a constant bias is applied, so that the junction capacitance will not vary. From these two measurements, the junction capacitance variation can be subtracted out from the total measured capacitance change, yielding the capacitance change due to movement of the structure alone. The capacitance variation due to structure motion increased from 513 fF at 1.3 V to 706 fF at 2.5 V. This sensitivity corresponds to 269 fF/V due to movement of the sensing mass. The variation of capacitance with force can be calculated using [21] (6) WEIGOLD et al.: SUBMICROMETER, SINGLE CRYSTAL Si ACCELEROMETER 523 IV. CONCLUSION Fig. 7. Measured capacitance change with applied voltage for fabricated accelerometer with 0.4-m-wide beams. The voltage is only applied to one of the two sets of comb fingers. This measurement is masked by the variation of junction capacitance with voltage. An acceleration sensor with a minimum detectable acceleration in the g range was designed in order to demonstrate and prove the performance gains provided by the dry etch conditions and fabrication processes. This accelerometer will benefit by the high aspect ratio gaps, providing increased capacitance as well as a larger number of sense fingers in the comb sense structure compared to sensors fabricated using other technologies. With submicrometer beam width and comb gaps, these devices should be able to achieve g sensing with the added benefit that the simple process can result in high yields with very few processing steps. In addition, the process used is compatible with circuit integration so that circuitry can be included with the sensor. kg and had The fabricated sensor has a mass of m . The measured spring a proof mass that was constant for 1- m-wide beams was 0.127 N/m, which was close to the simulated spring constant of 0.146 N/m. From the measurements of capacitance changes, the equivalent sensitivity is calculated to be 6.3 fF/g, which is similar to the sensitivity of 7.0 fF/g for the 1- m-wide beams obtained from the calculations based on device design. For the device with 0.4- m-wide beams, an equivalent sensitivity is calculated to be 39.62 fF/g for one set of combs or 79.2 fF/g for both sides. The accelerometer sensitivity can be further improved by fabricating even narrower beams. As shown in the calculations, 0.2- m-wide beams with 0.1- m-wide gaps can provide a sensitivity of 76 pF/g with a noise equivalent acceleration of 4.4 g/Hz . REFERENCES Fig. 8. Capacitance change with acceleration determined by subtracting out junction capacitance variation. In normal device operation, the sensor is biased with a constant voltage and the junction capacitance will not vary with acceleration. where is the dielectric constant and a is the applied acceleration to the sensor. From the measured – curve, the capacitance change can be related to equivalent acceleration as shown in Fig. 8. Therefore, the equivalent sensitivity for one set of combs obtained from the changes in capacitance was found to be 39.62 fF/g. 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[21] A. Selvakumar, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 1997. [22] “ANSYS 5.5.2,” ANSYS Inc., Southpointe, 275 Technology Drive, Canonsburg, PA, 15 317, http://www.ansys.com. Jason W. Weigold (S’95–M’00) received the B.S.E.E degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1995 and the M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1997 and 2000, respectively. He has worked at Analog Devices, Inc., on surface micromachined accelerometers. His research interests include sensors, micromachining and MEMS, dry etching, and other microfabrication technologies. Dr. Weigold is a student member of the SPIE, the Electrochemical Society, as well as the American Vacuum Society. Khalil Najafi (S’84–M’86–SM’97–F’00) was born in 1958. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in 1980, 1981, and 1986, respectively, all in electrical engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. From 1986 to 1988, he was employed as a Research Fellow, from 1988 to 1990, as an Assistant Research Scientist, from 1990 to 1993, as an Assistant Professor, from 1993 to 1998, as an Associate Professor, and since September 1998, as a Professor, and the Director of the Solid-State Electronics Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan. His research interests include: micromachining technologies, solid-state micromachined sensors, actuators, and MEMS; analog integrated circuits; implantable biomedical microsystems; hermetic micropackaging; and low-power wireless sensing/actuating systems. Dr. Najafi was awarded a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award from 1992 to 1997, was the recipient of the Beatrice Winner Award for Editorial Excellence at the 1986 International Solid-State Circuits Conference, of the Paul Rappaport Award for coauthoring the Best Paper published in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, and of the Best Paper Award at ISSCC 1999. In 1994, he received the University of Michigan’s “Henry Russel Award” for outstanding achievement and scholarship, and was selected as the “Professor of the Year” in 1993. In 1998, he was named the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor for outstanding contributions to teaching and research, and received the College of Engineering’s Research Excellence Award. He has been active in the field of solid-state sensors and actuators for more than 18 years, and has been involved in several conferences and workshops dealing with solid-state sensors and actuators, including the International Conference on Solid-State Sensors and Actuators, the Hilton-Head Solid-State Sensors and Actuators Workshop, and the IEEE/ASME Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) Workshop. He is the Editor for Solid-State Sensors for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, Associate Editor for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, Associate Editor for IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, Institute of Physics Publishing. Stella W. Pang (S’81–M’82–SM’91–F’99) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, in 1981. She is currently Professor of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Michigan. From 1981 to 1989, she was with Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lexington, working on submicrometer technology for microelectronic applications. Her research interests include nanofabrication technology, dry etching, dry deposition, and surface modifications for microelectromechanical, microelectronic, and optical devices. She has over 250 technical papers, book chapters, and presentations. Dr. Pang has served as conference organizer for the American Vacuum Society, the Electrochemical Society, IEEE, the Material Research Society, and SPIE. She is a Fellow of ECS and AVS.