Intelligent thermopile-based vacuum sensor

Abstract

We report here the development of a simple and low-cost intelligent vacuum sensor based on multipurpose thermopile MEMS chips. Our devices have a p(+)Si heater and two thermopiles with 30 p(+)Si/Al thermocouples each. Thermal and electrical isolation is provided by a sandwich membrane (residual n-Si and sputtered oxide). The sensor utilizes for its intelligent mode of operation a modified version of an existing processing module we developed for our piezoresistive sensors.