STTR Phase I: Packaging of MEMS Inertial Sensors for Mechanically Harsh Environments

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I Project will investigate the feasibility of integrating advanced vibration isolation packaging technology with Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) inertial (translational and rotational hybrid) sensors to yield packaged MEMS inertial sensors suitable for mechanically harsh environments, such as automotive and space. To date, many MEMS inertial sensors have been precluded from such applications due to their susceptibility to high frequency vibrations present in these environments. The patent pending vibration isolation packaging technology developed will consist of semi-active mechanical low-pass filters fabricated using MEMS fabrication techniques. This design will be utilized inside microelectronic packaging as high frequency vibration isolation platforms. This effort will combine those two technologies to demonstrate feasibility of the vibration filtering system for MEMS inertial sensors. The primary commercial applications envisioned are in the automotive and industry sector requiring sensor operation in harsh environments. The technologies developed in this work will target those markets that require MEMS sensor performance, in the face of vibrations, above what is currently available. The use of semi-active mechanical damping can improve sensor performance, and hence overall system performance, without large increases in size or cost. Companies who are developing MEMS-based sensors for a variety of applications would be potential customers. These companies would benefit from the availability of an active filtering package for MEMS sensors and could easily integrate the package with their sensor.