This review reports an overview and development of micro-gyroscope. The review first presents different types of micro-gyroscopes. Micro-gyroscopes in this review are categorized into Coriolis gyroscope, levitated rotor gyroscope, Sagnac gyroscope, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) gyroscope according to the working principle. Different principles, structures, materials, fabrications and control technologies of micro-gyroscopes are analyzed. This review compares different classes of gyroscopes in the aspects such as fabrication method, detection axis, materials, size and so on. Finally, the review evaluates the key technologies on how to improve the precision and anti-jamming ability and to extend the available applications of the gyroscopes in the market and patents as well.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0960-1317/19/11/113001/pdf

The development of micro-gyroscope technology

This review surveys micromachined gyroscope structure and circuitry technology The principle of micromachined gyroscopes is first introduced Then, different kinds of MEMS gyroscope structures, materials and fabrication technologies are illustrated Micromachined gyroscopes are mainly categorized into micromachined vibrating gyroscopes (MVGs), piezoelectric vibrating gyroscopes (PVGs), surface acoustic wave (SAW) gyroscopes, bulk acoustic wave (BAW) gyroscopes, micromachined electrostatically suspended gyroscopes (MESGs), magnetically suspended gyroscopes (MSGs), micro fiber optic gyroscopes (MFOGs), micro fluid gyroscopes (MFGs), micro atom gyroscopes (MAGs), and special micromachined gyroscopes Next, the control electronics of micromachined gyroscopes are analyzed The control circuits are categorized into typical circuitry and special circuitry technologies The typical circuitry technologies include typical analog circuitry and digital circuitry, while the special circuitry consists of sigma delta, mode matching, temperature/quadrature compensation and novel special technologies Finally, the characteristics of various typical gyroscopes and their development tendency are discussed and investigated in detail

The Development of Micromachined Gyroscope Structure and Circuitry Technology

This paper reports on a practical modification of the two-step time-multiplexed plasma etching recipe (also known as the Bosch process) to achieve high aspect-ratio sub-micron wide trenches in silicon. Mixed argon and oxygen plasma depassivation steps are introduced in between the passivation and etching phases to promote the anisotropic removal of the passivation layer at the base of the trench. Argon does not chemically react with polymers and silicon and removes the passivation layer only by physical sputtering. Therefore, it results in a highly anisotropic polymer etching process. This recipe can be easily integrated on conventional ICP equipment and the scalloping on the trench sidewall can potentially be reduced in size to less than 50 nm. To clean up all the passivation residues, a short oxygen plasma step is also added at the end of the cycle that effectively improves the uniformity of the etching profile over various opening sizes. Excellent anisotropy of the inserted argon depassivation step facilitates narrow trenches down to 130 nm wide and gap aspect-ratios as high as 40:1, extending the application of deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) processes into a new broad regime.

An advanced reactive ion etching process for very high aspect-ratio sub-micron wide trenches in silicon

This paper presents the perfect matched-mode operation of a type I non-degenerate z-axis tuning-fork gyroscope (i.e., 0 Hz frequency split between high-Q drive and sense modes). The matched-mode tuning fork gyroscope (M2-TFG) is fabricated on 50-µ m thick SOI substrate and displays an overall rate sensitivity of 24.2 mV/o/s. Allan Variance analysis of the mode-matched device demonstrates an angle random walk (ARW) of 0.045 o/√ hr and a measured bias instability of 0.96 o/hr. Temperature characterization of the M2-TFG verifies that mode matching is maintained over a temperature range of 20-100 ° C.

High Performance Matched-Mode Tuning Fork Gyroscope

This paper presents the architecture and experimental verification of the automatic mode-matching system that uses the phase relationship between the residual quadrature and drive signals in a gyroscope to achieve and maintain matched resonance mode frequencies. The system also allows adjusting the system bandwidth with the aid of the proportional-integral controller parameters of the sense-mode force-feedback controller, independently from the mechanical sensor bandwidth. This paper experimentally examines the bias instability and angle random walk (ARW) performances of the fully decoupled MEMS gyroscopes under mismatched (~ 100 Hz) and mode-matched conditions. In matched-mode operation, the system achieves mode matching with an error frequency separation between the drive and sense modes in this paper. In addition, it has been experimentally demonstrated that the bias instability and ARW performances of the studied MEMS gyroscope are improved up to 2.9 and 1.8 times, respectively, with the adjustable and already wide system bandwidth of 50 Hz under the mode-matched condition. Mode matching allows achieving an exceptional bias instability and ARW performances of 0.54 °/hr and 0.025 °/√hr, respectively. Furthermore, the drive and sense modes of the gyroscope show a different temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) measured to be -14.1 ppm/°C and -23.2 ppm/°C, respectively, in a temperature range from 0 °C to 100 °C. Finally, the experimental data indicate and verify that the proposed system automatically maintains the frequency matching condition over a wide temperature range, even if TCF values of the drive and sense modes are quite different.

An Automatically Mode-Matched MEMS Gyroscope With Wide and Tunable Bandwidth

This paper presents the design and implementation of an in-plane solid-mass single-crystal silicon tuning fork gyro that has the potential of attaining sub-deg/hr rate resolutions. A design is devised to achieve high Q in the drive and sense resonant modes (Q/sub drive/=81,000 and Q/sub sense/=64,000) with effective mode decoupling. The gyroscope was fabricated on 40 /spl mu/m thick silicon-on-insulator (SOI) using a simple two-mask process. The drive and sense resonant modes were balanced electrostatically to within 0.07% of each other and the measured rate results show a sensitivity of 1.25 mV//spl deg//s in a bandwidth of 12 Hz.

F.M. Zaman

Papers

A high-Q in-plane SOI tuning fork gyroscope