A single-sided multilevel structure for silicon pressure transducers by ''masked-maskless'' etching technology

A novel singled-sided multilevel island-beam-diaphragm structure has been designed and fabricated for an extremely high sensitivity pressure transducers by using a novel anisotropic etching technology called masked-maskless anisotropic etching technology. The structure consists of two small islands for overrange protection, two shallow masses for stress concentration, three thin beams on a deep-etched thin diaphragm for piezoresistoss location. A prototype pressure transducer of 400 pa operation range and 0.6% nonlinearity has been tested.