Investigation of Packaging Effect of Silicon-Based Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor

Abstract

The silicon-based pressure sensor is one of the major applications in the MEMS device. Nowadays, the silicon piezoresistive pressure sensor is a mature technology in industry and its measurement accuracy is more rigorous in many advanced applications. In order to operate the piezoresistive pressure sensor in harsh environment, the silicone get is usually used to protect the die surface and wire bond while allowing the pressure signal to be transmitted to the silicon diaphragm. The major factor affecting the high performance applications of the piezoresistive pressure sensor is the temperature dependence of its pressure characteristics. Therefore, the thermal and packaging effects caused by the silicone gel behaviors should be taken into consideration to obtain better sensor accuracy and sensitivity. For this reason, a finite element method (FEM) is adopted for the sensor performance evaluation, and the thermal and pressure loading is applied on the sensor to study the output signal sensitivity as well as the packaging-induced signal variation, thermal/packaging effect reduction, and output signal prediction for the pressure sensors. The design parameters include silicon die size, silicone gel geometry and its material properties. The simulation results show that the smaller die size and the thicker die thickness can reduce the packaging-induced thermal effect. Furthermore, the different geometry of silicone gel also influences the sensitivity of pressure sensor.