A CMOS smart temperature and humidity sensor with combined readout

Sensors (Basel). 2014 Sep 16;14(9):17192-211. doi: 10.3390/s140917192.

Abstract

A fully-integrated complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor for combined temperature and humidity measurements is presented. The main purpose of the device is to monitor the hermeticity of micro-packages for implanted integrated circuits and to ensure their safe operation by monitoring the operating temperature and humidity on-chip. The smart sensor has two modes of operation, in which either the temperature or humidity is converted into a digital code representing a frequency ratio between two oscillators. This ratio is determined by the ratios of the timing capacitances and bias currents in both oscillators. The reference oscillator is biased by a current whose temperature dependency is complementary to the proportional to absolute temperature (PTAT) current. For the temperature measurement, this results in an exceptional normalized sensitivity of about 0.77%/°C at the accepted expense of reduced linearity. The humidity sensor is a capacitor, whose value varies linearly with relative humidity (RH) with a normalized sensitivity of 0.055%/% RH. For comparison, two versions of the humidity sensor with an area of either 0.2 mm2 or 1.2 mm2 were fabricated in a commercial 0.18 μm CMOS process. The on-chip readout electronics operate from a 5 V power supply and consume a current of approximately 85 µA.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Humidity*
  • Product Packaging / classification*
  • Semiconductors*
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / instrumentation*
  • Systems Integration
  • Temperature
  • Thermography / instrumentation*
  • Transducers*
  • Water / analysis*

Substances

  • Water