Fabrication of capacitive absolute pressure sensors by thin film vacuum encapsulation on SOI substrates

The paper reports on the fabrication and characterization of absolute capacitive pressure sensors fabricated by polysilicon low-pressure chemical vapour deposition vacuum packaging on silicon-on-insulator substrates. The fabrication process proposed is carried out at wafer level and allows obtaining a large number of miniaturized sensors per substrate on 1 x 2 mm(2) chips with high yield. The sensors present average pressure sensitivity of 8.3 pF/bar and average pressure resolution limit of 0.24 mbar within the measurement range 200-1200 mbar. The temperature drift of the sensor prototypes was also measured in the temperature range 25-45 degrees C, yielding an average temperature sensitivity of 67 fF K-1 at ambient pressure.