A low power 3-axis digital output MEMS gyroscope with

single drive and multiplexed angular rate readout

Luciano Prandi1, Carlo Caminada1, Luca Coronato1, Gabriele Cazzaniga1, Fabio

Biganzoli1, Riccardo Antonello2, Roberto Oboe2

1
STMicroelectronics, Cornaredo (MI), Italy
2
University of Padova, Italy

Motivated by the increasing demand of integrated inertial sensing solutions for motion

processing (e.g. gesture recognition) and dead reckoning navigation in smart-phones, PDAs,

handheld devices and low-cost GPS navigators, this paper reports the details of a 3-axis silicon

MEMS vibratory gyroscope that fulfills the pressing market requirements for low power

consumption, small size and low cost. Thanks to an innovative compact mechanical design that

combines a triple tuning-fork structure within a single vibrating element, the proposed solution

achieves satisfactory performances in terms of thermal stability, cross-axis error and acoustic

noise immunity by using a small die size. Furthermore, the presence of a single primary vibration

mode for the excitation of the three tuning-forks, together with the possibility of sensing the

pickoff modes in a multiplexing fashion, allow to design a small area, low power ASIC.

The mechanical structure design is explained with the aid of Fig.1. The structure comprises 4

suspended plates coupled each other by means of 4 folded springs connected to their outer

corners, and elastically connected to a central cross-shaped hinge by an additional set of central

coupling springs. The primary mode of vibration (driving mode) consists of an in-plane

inward/outward radial motion of the plates: on the whole, the structure cyclically expands and

contracts, similarly to a “beating heart” (hence, the name). Primary actuation is provided with a
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set of comb-finger electrodes placed only on a pair of opposite plates; the mechanical motion is

then propagated to the second pair by means of the coupling folded springs at the corners. The

secondary modes of vibration (sensing modes) consist of an in-plane, opposite-phase motion of

the second pair of plates (yaw mode), and two out-of-plane, opposite-phase motions of both pairs

(pitch&roll modes). The yaw mode is sensed by a set of parallel-plate electrodes located on the

second pair of plates, whereas the pitch and roll motions are detected by sensing the capacitive

variations between each plate and an electrode placed underneath; additional comb-fingers

electrodes are reserved for sensing the vibrating motion of the driving mode.The mechanical

coupling between the two proof masses of each sensing pair allows to read the secondary

vibrating motions in differential mode, thus improving rejection of external linear accelerations

and vibrations; moreover, each secondary mode has a single resonant sensing frequency, instead

of two independent frequencies that require accurate matching to avoid performance

degradations, such as in designs with uncoupled proof masses. The overall mechanical structure

has frequency-unmatched primary and secondary modes, with a nominal primary resonant

frequency of 20kHz. This design choice, combined with a high Q-factor, guarantees a

satisfactory level of acoustic noise isolation.

The Coriolis force exciting a secondary mode is proportional to the velocity of the driving mode

and the input angular rate, and directed orthogonally to both the driving axis and sensor rotation

axis. The angular rate measurement is obtained from the sensed Coriolis acceleration by

demodulation, once the driving mode is oscillated at constant amplitude [1].

The primary mode is excited to oscillate at resonance by closing a feedback loop around the

micro-resonator made up of the resonating masses and the drive-readout/drive-forcing comb-

finger electrodes. In the feedback path, the capacitive unbalancing generated by the oscillating

motion of the primary mode is transduced into a voltage signal by a differential charge amplifier;

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then, a band-pass (BP) switching-capacitor (SC) amplifier removes the residual offset and

provides the necessary phase adjustment to have a total loop phase shift of 360° at the resonant

frequency, which is required for enforcing a sustained oscillation in the electromechanical loop.

The BP amplifier output is interpolated by a 2nd order continuous-time (CT) low-pass (LP)

Chebyshev filter and amplified by a variable-gain amplifier (VGA). The VGA gain is

automatically tuned by an outer automatic gain control (AGC) loop to regulate and verify the

amplitude of the sustained oscillation at the CT-LP filter output to a constant set-point value.

Finally, the VGA output, boosted by a charge-pump, is fedback to the comb-drive actuating

electrodes. All internal timings are generated by a PLL synchronized with the CT-LP filter

output.

A single, time-division multiplexed open-loop readout interface is used to retrieve the angular

rate measurements out of the Coriolis accelerations along the 3 sensing axes. A differential

charge-amplifier front-end converts the capacitive unbalancing induced by the Coriolis

movement into a voltage signal, which is then synchronously AM-demodulated using a carrier

in-phase with the velocity of the primary mode motion. A 12bit SAR ADC performs internal

A/D conversion at a rate of 6.06kHz/axis; a 100/200/400/800Hz output data rate (ODR) is

selected by changing the decimation factor of the output sinc-decimators. The final output

wordlength is equal to 16bit. The compensation of the quadrature error is performed at the

charge-amplifier input with a purely passive structure consiting of a dynamically reconfigurable

bank of calibrated capacitors [2].

The micro-mechanical element has been fabricated with the STMicroelectronics (STM)

proprietary thick-film epitaxial polysilicon surface-micromachining process (ThELMA) on a

3.2×3.2mm2 die; the ASIC has been implemented on a 2.5×2.5mm2 die with a 0.13μm min

channel length CMOS process. The MEMS and ASIC dies has been stack-assembled in a single

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4×4×1.1mm3 plastic LGA package. Thanks to the STM mechanical structure design, involving

only attachment points to the substrate (instead of multiple attachments to the cap and the

substrate), the sensor output exhibits excellent immunity to external mechanical stresses applied

to the package.

The characterization results of 33 different samples are reported in Figs.3–5 The overall

performances are excellent: the average noise density level is less than 0.03dps/√Hz (with

BW=40Hz and ODR=200Hz – note: dps=degree per second), and the zero-rate output (ZRO)

and sensor scale factor (So) are very stable over temperature – with FS=2000dps, the ZRO

temperature sensitivity is less than ±0.04dps/°C, while the scale factor change over the

temperature range -40°C÷85°C is within ±2% of the factory trimmed value (So=70mdps/LSB

with FS=2000dps). The design robustness is certified by the tight statistical distributions of the

ZRO and So temperature sensitivities. Thanks to the highly symmetric mechanical design, the

cross-axis sensitivities, measured as a percentage of the nominal selected full scale, are always

below ±2% and mainly due to mounting tolerances during packaging. High immunity to acoustic

noise is evident from data reported in Fig 6. Regarding power consumptions, with a supply

voltage in the range 2.16÷3.6V, the current absorbtion is 6.1mA during normal operation, 1.5mA

in sleep mode (sensing electronics switched off, but with the driving microresonator still

operative to reduce the power-on time), and 5μA in power-down mode.

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References:

[1] J. Geen et al., “Single-Chip Surface Micromachined Integrated Gyroscope with 50 /h Allan

Deviation,” IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, pp. 1860-1866, Dec., 2002.

[2] R. Antonello, R. Oboe, L. Prandi, F. Biganzoli, and C. Caminada. “Open loop Compensation

of the Quadrature Error in MEMS Vibrating Gyroscopes.” In Industrial Electronics, 2009.

IECON 2009. 35th Annual Conference of IEEE, Nov. 2009.

Captions:

Figure 1: micrograph of the MEMS gyroscope (actual die size = 3.2×3.2 mm2).

Figure 2: system architecture block diagram.

Figure 3: ZRO stability over temperature (top row); statistical distribution of the ZRO

temperature sensitivity over a set of 33 samples (bottom row). Tests have been performed with

FS=2000 dps.

Figure 4: scale factor (So) variation over temperature (top row); statistical distribution of the

scale factor temperature sensitivity over a set of 33 samples (bottom row). Tests have been

performed with FS=2000 dps.

Figure 5: statistical distributions of the cross-axis sensitivities over a set of 33 samples. Tests

have been performed with FS=2000 dps.

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Figure 6: sensor output response to an acoustical stimulus (sine noise at 90 dBSPL with

frequency sweeping in the range 500 Hz ÷ 25 kHz with steps of 5 Hz). The plots show the

average values of the pitch/roll/yaw angular rate outputs for each frequency of the sinusoidal

acoustical stimulus. Tests have been performed with FS=2000 dps, ODR =200 Hz and output

BW = 50 Hz.

Figure 7: ASIC die micrograph (actual die size = 2.5×2.5 mm2).

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Figure 1: micrograph of the MEMS gyroscope (actual die size = 3.2×3.2 mm2).

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Figure 2: system architecture block diagram.

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Figure 3: ZRO stability over temperature (top row); statistical distribution of the ZRO temperature sensitivity over a set
of 33 samples (bottom row). Tests have been performed with FS=2000 dps.

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Figure 4: scale factor (So) variation over temperature (top row); statistical distribution of the scale factor temperature
sensitivity over a set of 33 samples (bottom row). Tests have been performed with FS=2000 dps.

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Figure 5: statistical distributions of the cross-axis sensitivities over a set of 33 samples. Tests have been performed with
FS=2000 dps.

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Figure 6: sensor output response to an acoustical stimulus (sine noise at 90 dBSPL with frequency sweeping in the range
500 Hz ÷ 25 kHz with steps of 5 Hz). The plots show the average values of the pitch/roll/yaw angular rate outputs for each
frequency of the sinusoidal acoustical stimulus. Tests have been performed with FS=2000 dps, ODR =200 Hz and output
BW = 50 Hz.

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Figure 7: ASIC layout (actual die size = 2.5×2.5 mm2).

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