116 dB dynamic range CMOS readout circuit for MEMS capacitive accelerometer

A high stability in-circuit reprogrammable technique control system for a capacitive MEMS accelerometer is presented. Modulation and demodulation are used to separate the signal from the low frequency noise. A low-noise low-offset charge integrator is employed in this circuit to implement a capacitance-to-voltage converter and minimize the noise and offset. The application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is fabricated in a 0.5 mu m one-ploy three-metal CMOS process. The measured results of the proposed circuit show that the noise floor of the ASIC is -116 dBV, the sensitivity of the accelerometer is 66 mV/g with a nonlinearity of 0.5%. The chip occupies 3.5 x 2.5 mm(2) and the current is 3.5 mA.