Monolithic integrated surface micromachined pressure sensors with analog on-chip linearization and temperature compensation

This paper introduces a noval family of monolithic integrated surface micromachined pressure sensors with both linearization and temperature compensation done on-chip. All sensor parameters are fully programmable and on-chip stored using integrated EEPROM. Surface micromachined capacitive pressure sensors are predestinated for monolithic integrated sensor systems due to their compatibility to a standard CMOS process. This enables a cost effective production. Compared with piezoresistive pressure sensors, the surface micro-machined pressure sensors are superior with respect to high overpressure stability, simple packaging, ease of monolithic integration of signal conditioning electronics, low power consumption and small chip size.