The research on micromachined resonant accelerometer

This paper proposes a novel silicon micromachined resonant accelerometer. In this design, two double-ended tuning forks (DETF) serve as the stress-sensitive resonators. When an external acceleration is applied, the inertial force generated by the proof mass imposes on fork axially through the cantilever; consequently the shift in the reason frequency of the fork reflects the acceleration. Electrostatic combs are attached to each tine in order to drive the fork to resonate as a voltage is applied, and the capacitance between the fixed and movable combs is used to sense the resonant frequency. By its quasi-digital output, the trouble in detecting feeble analog signals from most MEMS devices could be averted.