Design and Simulation of a Micromachined Gas Flow meter

Dariush Javan Ebrahim Abbaspour

Urmia University Urmia University
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract: This paper describes the design of a gas Thermal flow sensors are basically thermally
flow meter using silicon bulk micromachining isolated structures which carry heater and
technology. The sensor is a thermal type device and temperature sensors.
consists of a micro heater and two temperature sensors In this paper the design and simulation of a
situated at the left and right side of the heating element micromachined thermal flow sensor has been
(Ru,Rd) on a stacked SiO2 / Si3N4 thermally isolated presented. The working principle of the designed
membrane. The sensor works on the bases of
sensor is based on the displacement of a
displacement of temperature profile around the heating
element with the gas flow. Ansys/Flotran software has temperature profile created by a heating element
been used for thermal and fluid simulations. The due to the presence of incoming gas flow.
simulation results provide the optimum distance
between the central heating element and two sensing 2 Measurement Principle
elements in the range of 200µm. Also, the required
heater temperature found to be in the range of 393 K. A thermal flow sensor provides information about
velocity and flow rate of gas flow in a flow
Keywords: Micromachining technology, thermal channel. These sensors can be classified in three
flow meter, anemometers, calorimetric sensor, basic categories depending on the measurement
Flotran parameter [2]:

1 Introduction • Anemometers
• Time of flight sensors
Flow meters are used to measure the rate of • Calorimetric flow sensors
displacement of a gas or liquid with respect to
time. There is a growing demand for gas flow The measurement principle of anemometer type
measurement in the industrial, environmental, sensors is based on the heat dissipation of a micro
automotive and medical applications. In heating element when placed in a passing gas flow.
consideration of possible flow sensing principles in The temperature variation of this heating element
macroscopic flow meters (electromagnetic field, is considered as measurement parameter. In
ultrasonic, coriolis force, differential pressure, thermal time of flight sensors the passage time of a
thermal…), the thermal flow measurement and heat pulse over a known distance is measured [1].
differential pressure detection have revealed to be In calorimetric flow sensors two temperature
most promising for micromachined sensors sensing elements are placed at both sides of a
technology [1]. heating element. This heating element creates a
Although differential pressure detection is very symmetrical temperature distribution when there is
appropriate for liquid flow measurement, it is, no gas flow. The symmetrical temperature profile
however, less applicable for gas flow. In this case, changes due to the presence of incoming gas flow.
thermal flow sensors are preferred because they are This asymmetry of temperature profile due to
more sensitive and also they create low pressure incoming gas flow is detected by two temperature
drop. sensing elements around the heater. The upstream
sensing element is cooled whereas the downstream • The flow sensor is a bidirectional sensor. This
sensor is heated. These sensing elements can be means, gas flow in either direction, i.e. from sensor
temperature dependent resistors, thermopiles, (Ru) toward sensor (Rd) or vice versa, can be
temperature dependent diode or transistors. When detected; the absolute value of the outputs will be
using resistors, the temperature difference between the same in either case. This is very important in
two sensing resistors is considered as the some applications such as semiconductor industry
measurement parameter. The presented flow sensor (clean rooms) and medical applications.
in this paper is a calorimetric type sensor. Figure 1
shows a schematic of our designed sensor. 3 Design Issues of the Sensor

The behavior of the flow sensor depends on some

parameters and in the design process they must be
considered. Some of these issues will be described
bondingpads hereinafter.
temperaturesensing
resistors
membrane • To obtain a high sensitivity, the supplied power
gastemperature to heating element must be transported mainly by
sensingresistor gas flow and the dissipated power by the other
principles such as conduction and radiation must
be as small as possible. Therefore, one of the main
issues to be taken into account when designing the
sensor is the thermal isolation of the heating and
sensing elements. There are some techniques for
flow
obtaining good thermal isolation such as using
A A
some micromachined structures (e.g. membranes,
bridges…) and placing the sensing elements on the
low thermal conductivity materials (e.g. porous
silicon, highly doped poly silicon) [3,4]. Therefore,
we have designed a thin membrane made of Si3N4.
The advantages of this method are the small
thermal conductivity (in the range of 2.5 w/mk for
siliconsubstrate heatingresistor
Si3N4 as compared to 149 w/mk for Si ) and the
small thickness of Si3N4. Figure 2 presents the
cross section of our designed flow sensor, taken
along; line A-A in figure 1.
Figure 1: schematic view of the designed gas flow
sensor bonding pads
silicon dioxide layer
temperature sensing silicon nitride layer
gas temperature resistors
sensing resistor
Referring to figure 1, the sensor consists of three
elements including two sensing elements an
upstream (Ru), a downstream (Rd) and a heater
element all located on the dielectric membrane. As
we see, additional to sensing elements on the
membrane, there is a temperatures sensing resistor
on the silicon substrate. This resistor is used for
signal conditioning and temperature compensation silicon substrate heating resistor

of the sensor.
As we see in the figure 1, both sensing elements
around the heater have been placed symmetrically.
The symmetrical location of sensing elements has
some advantages as namely below: Figure 2: a cross sectional view of the designed
• Both temperature sensors see the same ambient sensor, taken along; line A-A in figure 1
temperature and pressure effects, and due to
differential output signal these common mode Referring to figure 2, the membrane formed by two
signals is removed from the sensor output. small thickness layer, a compressive one (SiO2)
with thickness of 0.6 µm and a tensile one (Si3N4) 4.1 Simulations Results
with thickness of 0.4 µm. Thus, the resulting stress
in the membrane will have a value in acceptable Extensive FEM simulations with different element
range [5,6]. numbers were carried out throughout the design
• Other important parameters to take into account phase. In these simulations different membrane
when designing the flow meter are the dimension and heater dimensions as well as different heater
of sensor’s membrane and the separation distance temperature were assumed. Figures 4 and 5 show
between the sensing elements and the central the temperature profile on the membrane for no gas
heater. The influence of these geometrical flow and flow with 1m/s velocity, respectively. In
parameters on the sensor response is very complex these figures the membrane dimension is
because the interaction between thermal and fluidic 950 × 950 (µm)2 also the heating element’s width
phenomena must be considered simultaneously. and temperature are 90 µm and 393 K,
Due to the complexity of the involved parameters, respectively.
we used the finite element simulations at the
design phase.

4 FEM Simulations of the Sensor

The flow sensor design phase was carried out by

means of ANSYS/FLOTRAN version 6.1. This
package has many capabilities for simulation
conjugate thermal and fluid phenomena. The
governing equations solved by FLOTRAN are
the Navier-Stokes equations combined with
the continuity equation and the thermal
transport equation. We must be very careful
about boundary conditions on the model, when Figure 4: symmetrical temperature profile on
using this package. For simulations we have the membrane, v=0m/s
considered the flow sensor to be into a flow
channel with diameter of 4mm. Also for creating a
fully developed and laminar gas flow over the
sensor chip, the flow channel length must be
selected properly. However, due to small thickness
of the sensor’s layers (0.6 µm SiO2, 0.4 µm Si3N4)
for dielectric membrane and 0.5 µm poly silicon
for heating element) and the extremely high aspect
ratios of silicon substrate (500 µm) and the flow
channel (4mm), the construction of FEM model of
the sensor has some difficulties and it needs fine
meshing near the membranes areas. Figure 3 shows
the FEM model of the sensor.

flow channel area

Figure 5: displacement of the temperature
profile due to gas flow, v=1m/s
dielectric m em brane m icroheater
Figure 6 shows the temperature distribution on the
sensors membrane when the flow velocity is varied
from 0 to 1.5 m/s. As we see in this figure; when
the flow velocity increases, the upstream side of
silicon substrate the heater is cooled but the downstream side is
heated.
Referring to figure 7 which provide information
Figure 3: FEM model of the sensor about the temperature difference between the right
and left sides of the heater, the sensitivity of the That means a compromise between sensor
sensor increases with the increase of distance from sensitivity, flow measurement range and the
the heater but, because of the saturation distance from heating element has to be made.
phenomenon, there is an optimal separation For our designed sensor this optimum distance is
distance between the heater and sensing elements 200 µm. In this case the maximum flow range of
for each flow range. the sensor is 1 m/s.

Temperature distribution on the membrane

393
v=0

membrane temperature [K]

v=0.1 373
v=0.5
v=0.8 353

v=1
333
v=1.1
v=1.5 313

293
-600 -400 -200 0 200 400 600
position in the X direction [um]

Figure 6: displacement of temperature distribution on the membrane due to various flow

velocities

Sensor temperature as function of the flow velocity

18 115um
temperature difference [K]

16 133um
14 170um
12 189um
10 208um
8 394um
6
4
2
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
flow velocity [m/s]

Figure 7: temperature difference vs. flow velocity for various

heater/sensor separation distances
4.2 Influence of Gas Temperature variation 5 Sensor Fabrication Process
on the Output Signal
The fabrication process of the designed flow
Figure 8 shows the sensor response for different sensor is shown in figure 9. On a 500 µm <100>
gas flow temperatures. As observed in this figure, silicon wafer a 0.6 µm SiO2 and 0.4 µm LPCVD
the sensor’s sensitivity decreases with the increase Si3N4 layers is deposited (figure10a). These layers
of the gas temperature. When the gas temperature create the dielectric membrane. For heater and
increases, the amount of heat energy that is sensing elements, a 0.5 µm LPCVD poly silicon is
transferred to both sides of the heating element by deposited (figure10b).
flow, decreases and it causes the sensitivity to
decrease.

Sensor response for different flow temperature

24
22
20
18
16 T=293K
dT(T1-T2) [K]

14 T=303K
12 T=313K
10 T=263K
8 T=253K
6
4
2
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
flow velocity [m/s]

Figure 8: sensor response for various gas temperatures

One solution for this problem is to fix the A layer of phosphorus silicate glass for doping of
temperature difference between the heater and gas poly silicon is deposited and thermal processing is
flow. This solution needs the gas temperature to be done (figure10c). The pattering of doped poly
detected. In our designed sensor a reference silicon for creating the heater and temperature
sensing element is located on the silicon substrate sensing resistors is done (figure10d). Then the
for this purpose (figure 1). Because of the high back side of the wafer is etched by KOH
thermal conductivity of silicon, these resistors (figure10e). In this case, the etch stops
monitor the temperature of gas flow. Figure 9 automatically when it reaches to SiO2 .Finally Al is
shows the sensors output after temperature deposited for metallization (figure10f).
compensation.

18
16
14
12 T=293K
10
"T=313K"
8
6 T=253K
4
2
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

Figure 9: sensor response after temperature compensation

 References

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Sandmaier and W. Lang, “Thermal flow sensor
for liquids and gases based on combinations of
two principles,” Sensors and Actuators A 73,
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b Si [2] M. Elwenspoek, “Thermal flow micro sensors,”
CAS 99, Volume 2, pp. 423-425, 1999
[3] A. G. Nassiopoulou and G. Kaltsas, “Porous
silicon as an effective material for thermal
isolation on bulk crystalline silicon,” Phys.
Stat. sol. pp 307-310, 2000
c Si [4] BW. Van oudheusden, “Silicon thermal flow
sensors,” Sensors and Actuators A 30, pp 5-26,
1992
[5] C. Rossi, E. Scheid and D. Esteve, “Theoretical
and experimental study of silicon
d Si micromachined microheater with dielectric
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[6] C. Rossi, P. T. Boyer and D. Esteve,
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f Si

silicon SiO2 Si3N4

poly PSG Al
silicon

Figure 10: flow sensor fabrication process

5 Conclusions

A micromachined thermal flow sensor for

measuring gas flows with a velocity range 0-1 m/s
has been designed. Thermal, fluid FEM
simulations have been used for designing the
sensor. The device consist of two temperature
sensing elements that surround a heater, all placed
over a silicon nitride membrane for ensuring high
sensitivity. Also a temperature sensing element is
placed on the silicon substrate for temperature
compensation of the sensor.