Resonant pitch and roll silicon gyroscopes with sub-micron-gap slanted electrodes: Breaking the barrier toward high-performance monolithic inertial measurement units

摘要

A low-cost technique for fabricating high-precision microscale gyroscopes could lead to personal navigation devices that do not require GPS (global positioning system). The small size and low cost of silicon microscale gyroscopes has enabled their use in various applications, from gaming to the automotive industry. However, the assembly of high-performance triaxial gyroscopes that are required for navigation systems drives up the cost of manufacturing and increases alignment inaccuracies. By using an anisotropic wet-etching technique to fabricate the planar pitch/roll gyroscope, Haoran Wen and Farrokh Ayazi at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and their colleagues avoided the need for expensive deep reactive-ion etching and three-dimensional chip assembly, reducing both manufacturing costs and the errors that result from the fabrication process. The team’s work facilitates the production of robust single-chip multiaxial gyroscope units that have potentially navigation-grade performance.