High Resolution Micro-Pirani Pressure Sensor Gauge with Transient Response Processing

Olivier Legendre (1) , Hervé Mathias (1) , Emile Martincic (1) , Jérôme Juillard (2) , Frédérick Mailly (3)

1 IEF - Institut d'électronique fondamentale
2 GeePs - Laboratoire Génie électrique et électronique de Paris
3 SysMIC - Conception et Test de Systèmes MICroélectroniques

A micro-Pirani pressure sensor which acts as a pressure dependent thermo-resistance gauge is traditionally exploited using a steady state resistance measurement. However any signal variation occurs over a constant voltage bias due to the initial resistance of the device which affects the sensor's sensitivity. Our work shows for the first time an experimental investigation of a micro-Pirani gauge based on its dynamical behavior when heated by a current step. Such a processing does magnify the pressure dependence of the gauge's signal in eliminating the initial resistance influences on the measurement. Furthermore, a first order low pass filter step response identification of the experimental transient signal strongly reduces the thermal noise influence on the measurement. The heating step, the recording of the time dependent signal and its post-processing can be easily achieved by a small-size controller. The proposed system provides a substantial enhancement of the micro-Pirani pressure sensor performance.

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique; Electronique; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]

Olivier Legendre, Hervé Mathias, Emile Martincic, Jérôme Juillard, Frédérick Mailly. High Resolution Micro-Pirani Pressure Sensor Gauge with Transient Response Processing. 2010 IEEE Sensors, Nov 2010, Hawaï, United States. pp.1478-1482, ⟨10.1109/ICSENS.2010.5690358⟩. ⟨hal-00551814⟩