STTR Phase I: High Relative Permittivity Packaging to Enhance MEMS Gyroscopic Sensors

这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）第一阶段项目将寻求通过使用创新封装来显着提高MEMS陀螺仪传感器的性能。这项工作将是一项技术商业化的第一步，该技术通过将静电MEMS器件密封封装在相对介电常数显著大于1的气体化学中，从而在控制静电MEMS器件性能的每个基本方程中获得等效增益。例如，二氧化硫是一种已被确定为适合这种应用的气体。利用这种技术的结果是实现了等效性能的MEMS器件，该器件可以比真空或传统气体化学封装的相同器件更小，更低电压和/或更强大。MEMS陀螺仪传感器特别适合利用这项技术，因为传感器的架构采用了静电驱动和电容传感，而且由于巨大的，但成本敏感的商业市场潜力，包括惯性传感，汽车安全，Segway人类运输车和类似系统，以及摄像机和数码相机图像稳定。如果成功，这一努力的结果之一将是增加流体阻尼、介电击穿和各种气体化学的相对介电常数电压幅值/频率依赖特性的知识库，这些特性迄今尚未在此类应用中进行研究。这将导致新的MEMS产品，现有MEMS产品的应用到新的应用，以及增强对微机械设备的能力和局限性的理解。

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will seek to significantly enhance the performance of MEMS gyroscopic sensors through the use of innovative packaging. This effort will be the firs step in the commercialization of a technique for augmenting electrostatic MEMS devices through hermetically packaging them in a gas chemistry that possesses a relative permittivity significantly greater than one, which results in an equivalent gain in each of the fundamental equations governing the performance of electrostatic MEMS devices. For example, sulfur dioxide is one gas that has been identified as suitable for this application. The result of utilizing this technique is the realization of an equivalent performance MEMS device that can be smaller, lower voltage and/or more powerful than the same device packaged in a vacuum or a traditional gas chemistry. MEMS gyroscopic sensors are particularly well suited to take advantage of this technology, due to the sensor's architecture where both electrostatic actuation and capacitive sensing are employed, and because of the large, but cost sensitive commercial market potential, which includes inertial sensing, automotive safety, the Segway Human Transporter and similar systems, and camcorder and digital camera image stabilization. If successful one of the outcomes of this effort will be an increased knowledgebase of the fluidic damping, dielectric breakdown, and relative permittivity voltage magnitude/frequency dependence properties of various gas chemistries that have not heretofore been investigated in this type of application. This should lead to new MEMS products, the application of existing MEMS products to new applications, and an enhanced understanding of the capabilities and limitations of micromachined devices.