Characteristics and performance of MEMS accelerometers

Until recently, accelerometer manufacturing appeared to be a reasonably mature field. But, this situation changed rapidly when researchers began to build miniature accelerometers using micron scale lithographic techniques developed for producing integrated circuits. Several micro‐ electro‐mechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers are now available commercially. The MEMS devices are attractive because they are relatively inexpensive to produce and they include electronic circuits to perform a variety control and signal processing functions on the same chip. How does the performance of these new devices compare to their older and larger competitors? The physics of the scaling laws suggests that performance should decrease with size. The MEMS technology may be well positioned to take advantage of new, small‐scale sensing and actuating methods and, in the process, MEMS fabricated accelerometers may avoid or overcome the engineering limitations of older generation devices by using high precision micro‐machining, arrays of sensors, on‐chip temperature control circuitry, etc. This study compares the performance and physical characteristics of micro‐machined and conventional accelerometers. We review the physical operating principles and describe the basic scaling laws and other factors that ultimately limit accelerometer performance. Then we tabulate and discuss the current performance and characteristics of diverse types of commercial accelerometers.