A new passive telemetry LC pressure and temperature sensor optimized for TPMS

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A new passive telemetry LC pressure and temperature sensor
optimized for TPMS
M Nabipoor and B Y Majlis
Institute of Microengineering and Nanoelectronics, University Kebangsaan Malaysia,
43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
Email: [email protected]
Abstract. A new structure for a passive telemetry LC absolute pressure and temperature sensor
is proposed, analytically simulated, and optimized to be used in a Tire Pressure Monitoring
System (TPMS). This device is designed to measure a range of pressure from 0 to 100psi with
an average sensitivity of 194.8KHz/psi and a wide temperature range of -100
O
C to more than
+300
O
C with a sensitivity of 0.273 O/
O
C. The die size measures 6mm*6mm and the maximum
working frequency is 56MHz.
1. Introduction
Continuous and accurate measurement of air pressure and temperature in next generations of tire
pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) in automotive applications requires a wireless device to increase
the portability and reliability. To serve as a long-term device, no battery must be used in such sensors
due to the limitations of lifetime, power, and chemical stability. The idea of telemetry communication
has been applied to some state of the art pressure sensors mostly designed to be implanted in human
body in medical applications [1-3]. We applied this idea for higher pressure ranges to be used in
automotive applications. Also we designed the sensor structure to sense the temperature in addition to
pressure.
In this passive telemetry LC pressure and temperature sensor a pressure sensitive capacitor is used
in parallel with a temperature sensitive inductor and together they make a LC tank circuit (figure 1).
Changing the applied pressure affects the resonant frequency of the circuit while the temperature
affects the bandwidth and amplitude of the impedance at this frequency.
Figure 1. The working principle of the LC pressure and temperature sensor.
Institute of Physics Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 34 (2006) 770775
doi:10.1088/1742-6596/34/1/127 International MEMS Conference 2006
770 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd
There would be another inductor in the external readout circuit which is coupled with the sensor
inductor and the impedance of the sensor is reflected to the external circuit by induced electromagnetic
filed. The passive telemetry electrical circuit model is shown in figure 2 in which R
P
and L
P
are the
resistance and inductance of readout circuit respectively, e is the angular frequency and M is the
mutual inductance. The circuit on the left is the direct model and the one on the right is its equivalent
circuit in which the sensor impedance is reflected to the readout circuit. The amount of applied
pressure and temperature could be determined by monitoring the amplitude and phase of the reflected
impedance for different frequencies.
Figure 2. The electrical model of the sensor with readout circuit and its equivalent circuit.
The sensor structure and simplified fabrication process are briefly introduced in Section 2.
Electromechanical analysis of the sensor parts (capacitor and inductor) are described in Section 3.
Section 4 is about optimization of the sensor for automotive applications followed by conclusion
Section.
2. Sensor structure
Figure 3 shows the cross section of the proposed sensor structure. Bottom electrode of the capacitor
and the coil of the inductor are fabricated on a glass wafer. The capacitor top electrode is created in a
5um square recess in silicon.
Glass Wafer
Bottom Electrode
Top Electrode
Silicon Membrane
Inductor Windings Air Bridge
Figure 3. The cross section of the proposed structure for pressure and temperature sensor
The fabrication process starts with anisotropic etching of the silicon wafer in KOH to produce a
(1mm*1mm*5um) square recess as the gap between two capacitor electrodes. Then a thin (100-200
nm) Aluminum film is evaporated and patterned on this recess to form the capacitor top electrode. The
next step is creating a deep recess by Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) to open the face of inductor
metal to the air. On the glass wafer a double layer thin metal (Ti/Pt) is deposited and patterned to form
the capacitor bottom electrode and the inductors seed layer. The Ti/Pt layer has a good adhesion with
glass [1]. A photoresist mold is then used for electroplating of thick copper layer of 25-turns square
inductor spiral. The silicon and glass wafers are anodically bonded together. Then the backside of
silicon wafer is etched to define the silicon membrane and also expose the inductor coil to the air. The
last step is connecting the capacitors top electrode to the outer end of the inductor using an air bridge.
3. Electromechanical analysis
771
The top view and cross section of a deflected square plate under a uniform pressure is shown in the
following figure.
x
y
a
P
w
Figure 4. Top view and cross section of the capacitor top plate under a uniform pressure.
Based on the classical plate equations of small deflection theory [4], the deflection d of any point
on a rectangular or square plate under uniform pressure P could be calculated by solving the following
partial differential equation [5].
D
P
y x d = V ) , (
4
(1)
In which D, the bending stiffness of the plate, and the operator
4
V are defined as follows,
) 1 ( 12
2
3
u
=
Et
D (2)
4
4
2 2
4
4
4
4
2
y y x x c
c
+
c c
c
+
c
c
= V (3)
Where E is the Youngs modulus and v is the Poissons ratio of the plate material and t is the
thickness of the plate. The analytical method of solving (1) has described in literature [5].
Under a uniform pressure the maximum stress is applied to the center of each side near the surface
and the centre of the plate gets the maximum displacement [6]. The maximum deflection and the
maximum stress are defined by (4) and (5) [6].

3
4
max
Et
Pa
d
|
= (4)

2
2
max
t
Pa q
o =
(5)
| and q are constants which are ~0.0138 and ~0.31 respectively. To calculate the capacitance
between two square plates one under uniform pressure and the other one fixed, the integration of (6)
must be calculated over the plate area in which g is the gap size.
) )

=
2 /
2 /
2 /
2 /
0
) , (
a
a
a
a
y x d g
dxdy
C
c
(6)
Numerical calculation is the best way to solve this integration because the deflection equation has a
very complicated form.
772
A good inductor model should represent its parasitic components such as series resistance, skin
effect, parasitic capacitances and substrate losses as well as its inductance. There has been done a lot
of works on modeling micro inductors [7-9]. A glass substrate is a very good isolator and the substrate
losses are negligible for the inductors fabricated on glass. The top view and electrical model of a
planar inductor over the glass wafer is shown in figure 5.
Figure 5. Top view and electrical model of a planar inductor on glass substrate.
L
s
is the inductance of the coil in low frequencies, R
s
is the temperature dependent series resistance
which models the DC resistance of the coil as well as its skin effect in high frequencies, C
t
is the
capacitance between the turns of the inductor windings.
Simplified equations for calculating L
s
and R
s
of a square spiral wire with rectangular cross section
are (7) and (8) defined in [8] and [1].
(

+
+
+
+

= 726 . 0
) (
2235 . 0
) (
ln
2
] [
2
s
s w N
s w N
s
N
s
H L
S
t

(7)

)) exp( 1 (
o
o

h
w
l
R
S

= (8)

f t

o = (9)
In which is the relative permeability of air, s is the distance between two wires, N is the number
of turns, is the resistivity of the metal, l is the total length of inductor, w is the width and h is the
height of the wire, o is the skin depth and f is the working frequency.
There is a parasitic capacitance between each turn of the inductor and the adjacent turn. Equation
(9) defines this capacitance for i
th
turn and its next turn. C
t
which is defined by (10) is the equivalent
total capacitance of these capacitors which are connected together in series.
rh
s s w i d s w i d
rh
dr
c
in in
s w i d
s s w i d
i
in
in
0
) (
) (
0
8
) ) ( ln( )) ( ln(
8
1
c c
+ + + +
= =
)
+ +
+ +
(10)
1 2 1
1
...
1 1 1

+ + + =
N t
C C C C
(11)
In above equations, c
0
is the permittivity of air.
4. Design for TPMS
The pressure range in TPMS applications is from zero to 100psi and the pressure sensor should
tolerate another 100psi overload pressure and the temperature range is from -40
O
C to +100
O
C.
773
4.1. Pressure dependency
In (6) the capacitance is related to the membrane size, the gap size, and the membrane deflection. The
deflection itself is a function of other parameters including pressure, membrane length, thickness and
material. The capacitor must have a small gap size and a thin membrane to have higher pressure
sensitivity. The ultimate stress of silicon (o
u
~600MPa [6]) determines the ratio of membrane length
over thickness (equation 5). Also the sensor capacitance should be much higher than the inductor
parasitic capacitance. This structure is designed to work in non-contact electrode mode. It means that
the maximum deflection of the plate under full pressure range which is defined by (4) should be
smaller than the gap size between two plates.
4.2. Temperature dependency
The resistivity of metals is a temperature dependent parameter and its general form is shown in (12).
T o + =
0
(12)
In which,
0
is the absolute resistivity of the metal, o is a constant, and T is temperature in Kelvin.
For high frequencies where the skin effect comes into account, the resistance value is a frequency
dependent parameter. To have a temperature dependent only resistance, the working frequency and
inductor dimensions should be carefully chosen to avoid skin effect. Increasing the inductor length and
decreasing the wire width and height increases the temperature sensitivity of the sensor.
Table 1 shows the sensor dimensions considering all the above mentioned issues and also some
process limitations.
Table 1. Dimensions of TPMS LC pressure and temperature sensor [um]
a t g w s d_out N
1000 24 5 18 6 4000 25
The following graphs show the changes of the capacitance versus applied pressure and the changes
of the inductor resistance versus temperature.
Figure 6. The changes of the capacitance and resistance of the sensor versus pressure and temperature
The impedance of the sensor versus frequency for different pressures and temperatures are graphed
in the following figure.
774
Figure 7. The impedance of the sensor versus frequency for different pressures and temperatures.
The resonant frequency is changed from 55.91MHz to 36.43MHz when the pressure is changed
from zero to 100psi and the impedance is changed from 72.62 O to 99.95 O when the temperature is
changed from zero to 100
O
C. So the sensors average pressure sensitivity is -194.8 KHz/psi and its
temperature sensitivity is 0.273 O/
O
C.
5. Conclusion
A passive telemetry LC structure was used to sense the pressure and temperature for automotive
applications. A new structure and a simple fabrication process were proposed for this structure. The
analytical model and design consideration of this sensor were studied and the sensor structure was
optimized for TPMS application.
Acknowledgment
This work has been supported by the Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment
under the project title Development of MEMS Technology for Automotive Application.
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