Noise analysis of a micro-G pull-in time accelerometer

Abstract

Pull-in time based accelerometers present very high resolutions. One of its most important features is the detection capability bottleneck due to the MEMS structure thermalmechanical noise rather than the measurement/transduction mechanism. A study of the intervenient noise sources is presented in this paper. MEMS structures fabricated on the SOIMUMPs process were used and a relatively high noise was measured, which, considering the analysis performed, was attributed to environmental vibrations that should be prevented in future experiments. The analysis supports the low-noise characteristics of the pull-in time accelerometer.