Integrated CMOS Porous Sensor
AssigneeSilicon Laboratories Inc.
InventorTimothy Cummins
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A single chip wireless sensor comprises a microcontroller connected by a transmit/receive interface to a wireless antenna. The microcontroller is also connected to an 8 kB RAM, a USB interface, an RS232 interface, 64 kB flash memory, and a 32 kHz crystal. The device senses humidity and temperature, and a humidity sensor is connected by an 18 bit ΣΔ A-to-D converter to the microcontroller and a temperature sensor is connected by a 12 bit SAR A-to-D converter to the microcontroller. The device is an integrated chip manufactured in a single process in which both the electronics and sensor components are manufactured using standard CMOS processing techniques, applied to achieve both electronic and sensing components in an integrated process.
Claims19
An integrated sensor device comprising:
- MOS circuits in a semiconductor substrate,
- an interconnect stack comprising interconnect levels having interconnect conductors and insulating dielectric, said interconnect levels being over the substrate and interconnecting the MOS circuits,
- a sensor including:
- electrodes embedded in the insulating dielectric and being integrally formed with the interconnect conductors, and
- a porous material for ingress of gas or humidity being sensed, and
- wherein the MOS circuits include an A-to-D converter coupled to the sensor and capable of receiving signals from the sensor electrodes, said A-to-D converter converting analog data to digital data, the digital data utilized when performing gas concentration measurements obtained by detecting together changes of conductivity of the sensor porous material resulting from gas concentration changes and changes of dielectric constant of the sensor porous material resulting from gas concentration changes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.