A fully integrated CMOS interface ASIC for two-axis piezoelectric angular rate MEMS inertial sensors

Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology has revolutionized the inertial sensors market. It enabled the development of compact, low cost, low noise and low power inertial sensors which are used in consumer, industrial and automotive applications. One of the challenges faced is in the design of interface electronics for these sensors. In this paper, we present the architecture and measurement results of a low power, low noise application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that interfaces to two-axis consumer-grade piezoelectric angular rate MEMS inertial sensors. The proposed ASIC has been fully integrated in 0.18 μm standard HVCMOS 6-metal layer technology and achieves better performance as compared to other related work. The presented ASIC design achieves a noise floor of 5.3 m°/s/√Hz over 100 Hz bandwidth. It occupies a compact area of 4mm² and draws 6.5mA from a single 3V supply. It meets the area, power and low-cost requirements which make it suitable for use in consumer applications such as image stabilization used in mobile phones and digital cameras.