Abstract
In this thesis, we discuss the use of squeeze-film damping effect for pressure sensing. In the field of microelectromechanics system(MEMS), this effect has been extensively studied, but mostly focused on the non-ideal effect it causes on dynamic structures. Recently, the concept of applying this effect to atmospheric pressure sensing has been proposed. In this work, 9 pressure sensors of 40μm in thickness are designed in a 4mm×4mm chip, which is fabricated by the TSMC MEMS shuttle process. The sensor chip is integrated with a piezoelectric actuator and the corresponding sensing circuit on a printed-circuit board(PCB). The PCB is placed in a pressure controlled chamber for testing. Combined with piezoelectric driving and capacitive sensing mechanism, the resonant frequency shift is comparable to the simulations. The sensitivity of an 800μm×800μm structure is 0.945 Hz/Pa.