Study of Low-Cost Electrical Test Strategies for Post-Silicon Yield Improvement of MEMS Convective Accelerometers

In this paper, different strategies for post-silicon yield improvement of MEMS convective accelerometers are explored. A key feature of the proposed strategies is that they can be implemented at low-cost using electrical test equipment since they only rely on the measurement of the relative deviation of Wheatstone bridge impedance due to power dissipation in the heating element. Different electrical test flows are defined that implement either sensitivity binning, sensitivity calibration, or both. Optionally, an additional constraint can be inserted in the test flows in case power consumption performance has also to be satisfied in addition to sensitivity. The efficiency of the different strategies is evaluated and discussed considering a population of 1,000 devices generated through Monte-Carlo simulation. Finally, experimental measurements that validate the calibration principle are presented.