| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20100043551 | Method and Apparatus for a Micromachined Multisensor - In a micromachined devices having a movable shuttle driven in oscillation, measuring the electrical charge accumulated on opposing drive capacitors to determine the displacement of the movable shuttle. Alternately, in such a micromachined device, measuring the electrical charge accumulated on a drive capacitor and comparing the measured electrical charge to a nominal electrical charge to determine the displacement of the movable shuttle. | 02-25-2010 |
| 20100188274 | Analog-to-Digital Converter Using Digital Output as Dither - An analog-to-digital converter includes a delta circuit, a sigma circuit, and a quantizer circuit and further includes a feedback circuit that modulates a reference voltage provided to the quantizer circuit based on the quantizer circuit output. Modulation of the quantizer reference voltage dithers the quantizer circuit to effectively reduce or avoid lock bands. The analog-to-digital converter may be used in combination with a microelectromechanical (MEMS) device such as a gyroscope, an accelerometer, or a pressure sensor. | 07-29-2010 |
| 20100294039 | Mode-Matching Apparatus and Method for Micromachined Inertial Sensors - A mode matching servo for an inertial sensor having a resonator and an accelerometer provides a test signal at a frequency higher than a predetermined inertial sensor response frequency and lower than an accelerometer resonance mode frequency so as to induce acceleration signals from the accelerometer substantially at the test signal frequency when the modes are not matched. A feedback signal is provided in response to such induced signals to substantially nullify the signals. | 11-25-2010 |
| 20110030474 | Inertial Sensors with Reduced Sensitivity to Quadrature Errors and Micromachining Inaccuracies - Inertial sensors with reduced sensitivity to quadrature errors and micromachining inaccuracies include a gyroscope incorporating two specially-configured single-axis gyroscopes for sensing rotations about two orthogonal axes (the axes of sensitivity) in the device plane, where each single-axis gyroscope includes a resonator having two rotationally-dithered shuttles interconnected by a fork and each shuttle is configured to tilt out-of-plane along a tilt axis perpendicular to the axis of sensitivity and includes corresponding Coriolis sensing electrodes positioned along an axis perpendicular to the tilt axis (i.e., parallel to the axis of sensitivity). The two single-axis gyroscopes may be interconnected, e.g., by one or more in-phase or anti-phase couplings interconnecting the forks and/or the shuttles. | 02-10-2011 |
| 20110041609 | Offset Detection and Compensation for Micromachined Inertial Sensors - Error sources relating to the drive signal applied to the resonator of an inertial sensor, such as in-phase offset errors relating to the drive signal and/or electronic pass-through of the drive signal to accelerometer sense electronics, are detected by modulating the drive signal and sensing accelerometer signals that are induced by the modulated drive signal. Error sources related to aerodynamics of an inertial sensor resonator are detected by modulating the distance between the resonator and the underlying substrate and sensing accelerometer signals that are induced by such modulation. Compensating signals may be provided to substantially cancel errors caused by such error sources. | 02-24-2011 |
| 20110115498 | Detection and Mitigation of Particle Contaminants in MEMS Devices - Detecting and/or mitigating the presence of particle contaminants in a MEMS device involves including MEMS structures that in normal operation are robust against the presence of particles but which can be made sensitive to that presence during a test mode prior to use, e.g., by switching the impedance of sensitive structures between an exceptionally sensitive condition during test and a normal sensitivity during operation; surrounding sensitive nodes with guard elements that are at the same potential as those nodes during operation, thereby offering protection against bridging particles, but are at a very different potential during test and reveal the particles by their resulting leakage currents; extending the sensitive nodes to interdigitate with or otherwise extend adjacent to the guard structures, which neither contribute to nor detract from the device operation but cover otherwise open areas with detection means during test; and/or converting benign areas in which particles might become trapped undetectably by electric fields during test to field-free regions by extending otherwise non-functional conductive layers so that the particles can then be moved into detection locations by providing some mechanical disturbance. | 05-19-2011 |
