Smart Sensors modeling using VHDL-AMS for micro instruments implementation with a distributed architecture

The objective of this work is to develop a modeling of a complete smart sensor to be used in a distributed architecture, with the new modeling language, VHDL-AMS. This smart sensor is composed by a sensor or actuator, for example we have used a piezoresistive accelerometer, its signal conditioning module, with both analogue and digital elements, and a bus driver that allows communication with the instrument control device and other sensors. In that way, it is also possible to introduce these microsensors in a distributed architecture that permits communication between microinstruments. This example of modeling through VHDL-AMS shows how this language allows a multitechnological description of a microsystem, including not only electrical signals, but also thermical, kinematic, fluidic, etc. signals. This language also permits to describe systems in different levels of complexity and abstraction, giving the possibility of covering several models from a physical model until a behavioral model, which can be used to obtain a design methodology for MEMS, analogous to the existent design methodology for integrated circuits. The combination of smart sensors models at behavioral level with the microinstrument control circuit models is a first step in the development of a complete design methodology.