SBIR-STTR Award

The feasibility of a very low-cost approach to producing smart vibration sensors will be investigated. The approach consists of: (1) fabricating integrated circuit wafers containing vibration sensor precursors and signal processing electronics at a commercial Application-Specific Integrated-Circuit (ASIC) foundry service in a completely standard CMOS process; (2) processing the completed wafers to convert the sensor precursors into functional sensors on chips suitable for postmolder-plastic (PMP) packaging; and (3) packaging the chips at a commercial PMP packaging service. Steps (1), (2), and (3) involve CIFMEMS, post-processing, and PMP technologies, respectively. These steps will be carried out (or simulated when appropriate) to produce functional vibration sensors with interface electronics co-integrated on a single chip in a PMP package. Post-processing procedures to make CIFMEMS and PMP technologies compatible without sacrificing the cost advantages of these technologies will be researched. Potential problems that significantly increase cost or reduce reliability will be identified, and potential solutions for implementation in a Phase 2 effort will be proposed. COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: There is a large, untapped market for very lost-cost vibration sensors for shutting off malfunctioning air-conditioning compressors in commercial buildings to minimize the damage that is caused by running a malfunctioning unit. A break-through in sensor cost is needed to tap this market. The results of a successful completion of this project will be applicable to many other untapped sensor markets

The feasibility of a very lost cost approach to producing smart amplication-specific vibration sensors will be investigated. The approach consists of: (1) fabricating integrated circuit wafers containing vibration sensor precursors and signal processing electronics at a commercial Application-Specific Integrated-Circuit (ASIC) foundry service in a completely standard CMOS process; (2) processing the completed wafers to convert the sensor precursors into functional sensors on dies suitable for postmolded-plastic (PMP) packaging; and (3) packaging the dies at a commercial PMP packaging service. Sensor system protyping will be carried out with low-cost multi-project wafer runs and a full-wafer layout will be designed when prototyping is completed. Low-cost test wafers that simulate the sensor-wafer layout will be fabricated and run through steps 2 and 3 to veri that they are working properly. Then a small batch of full wafers will be run through steps 1, 2, and 3. The results will be somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 single-chip demonstration vibration-sensor systems for testing by potential customers for custom systems. COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: There is a large untapped market for very low-cost vibration sensors for shutting off malfunctioning air-conditioning compressors to minimize the damage to equipment that is covered by manufacturers warranties. A break-through in vibration-sensor cost is needed to tap this market. The results of the successful completion of this project will be applicable to many other untapped markets for vibration sensors such as condition-based maintenance.