A silicon micromachined high-shock accelerometer with a bonded hinge structure

A silicon micromachined high-shock accelerometer with a bonded hinge structure is presented. The sensitivity of this accelerometer can be adjusted by changing the dimensions of the sensing beams, and the resonance frequency is mainly decided by the hinges. Based on simulation results of the finite element method, design parameters are obtained for a device with a resonance frequency of 573 kHz and large range of 200 000 g . The shock accelerometer is fabricated by advanced silicon bulk micromachining technology, including deep-reactive ion etching and silicon–silicon bonding technology. The primary performance of the accelerometer is examined by a free dropping-bar system. The results of the shock tests show that the accelerometer has a sensitivity of 0.516 µV g −1 for a 44 614 g shock acceleration under the 5 V excitation.