A support substrate includes an insulating core layer, an electrically conductive layer over the insulating core layer and a solder mask layer over the electrically conductive layer. A back side of an integrated circuit chip is mounted to an upper surface of the support substrate at a die attach location. The upper surface of the support substrate includes a cavity located within the die attach location, where the cavity extends under the back side of the integrated circuit chip. The cavity is defined by an area where the solder mask layer and at least a portion of the electrically conductive layer have been removed. Bonding wires connect connection pads on a front side of the integrated circuit chip to connection pad on the upper surface of the support substrate.

In certain embodiments, an accelerometer is a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device including a proof mass, an anchor located in an opening defined by a body of the proof mass, a spring, a drive electrode, and a sense beam. The spring and the proof mass form a spring system suspended from the anchor. The sense beam oscillates at a particular resonance frequency based on application of a signal to the drive electrode. The MEMS device further includes a support structure coupled to the anchor. The support structure operates as a stress decoupling area and includes a support beam, with the spring corresponding to an end of the support beam that has a reduced thickness. The sense beam has a first end attached to the proof mass and a second end attached to the support beam such that the sense beam is orthogonal to the support beam.

Sensor apparatus and methods for operating the same for measuring acceleration are disclosed. In some embodiments, circuitry inside a sensor digitizes a measured acceleration signal from an accelerometer into a digitized acceleration signal, which is processed by a digital equalization filter within the sensor to provide an equalized acceleration signal. The equalized acceleration signal may have a frequency response that is substantially flat over a frequency range that extends beyond the resonant frequency of a MEMs sensor within the accelerometer of the sensor.

A device includes a substrate comprising a first standoff, a second standoff, a third standoff, a first cavity, a second cavity, and a bonding material covering a portion of the first, the second, and the third standoff. The first cavity is positioned between the first and the second standoffs, and the second cavity is positioned between the second and the third standoffs. The first cavity comprises a first cavity region and a second cavity region separated by a portion of the substrate extruding thereto, and wherein a depth associated with the first cavity region is greater than a depth associated with the second cavity. A surface of the first cavity is covered with a getter material.

A three dimensional (3D) micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) device is provided. The device comprises a central MEMS wafer, and top and bottom cap wafers. The MEMS wafer includes a MEMS structure, such as an inertial sensor. The 5 top cap wafer, the bottom cap wafer and the MEMS wafers are stacked along a stacking axis and together form at least one hermetic cavity enclosing the MEMS structure. At least one of the top cap wafer and the bottom cap wafer is a silicon-on- insulator (SOI) cap wafer comprising a cap device layer, a cap handle layer and a cap insulating layer interposed between the cap device layer and the cap handle layer. At 10 least one electrically conductive path extends through the SOI cap wafer, establishing an electrical convection between an outer electrical contact provided on the SOI cap wafer and the MEMS structure.

The purpose of the present invention is to improve the pressure resistance of a cavity in a semiconductor sensor device employing a resin package, and to do so without adversely affecting the embeddability of an electrically conductive member. The semiconductor sensor device has a gap 1a sealed in an airtight manner inside a laminate structure of a plurality of laminated substrates 1, 4, and 5, and has a structure in which the outside of the laminate structure is covered by a resin, wherein a platy component 2 having at least one side that is greater in length than the length of one side of the gap 1a along this side is arranged to the outside of an upper wall 1b of the gap 1, the upper wall 1b of the gap being mechanically suspended by the platy component 2.

A system and/or method for utilizing MEMS switching technology to operate MEMS sensors. As a non-limiting example, a MEMS switch may be utilized to control DC and/or AC bias applied to MEMS sensor structures. Also for example, one or more MEMS switches may be utilized to provide drive signals to MEMS sensors (e.g., to provide a drive signal to a MEMS gyroscope).

A sensor chip includes a first substrate with a first surface and a second surface including at least one CMOS circuit, a first MEMS substrate with a first surface and a second surface on opposing sides of the first MEMS substrate, a second substrate, a second MEMS substrate, and a third substrate including at least one CMOS circuit. The first surface of the first substrate is attached to a packaging substrate and the second surface of the first substrate is attached to the first surface of the first MEMS substrate. The second surface of the first MEMS substrate is attached to the second substrate. The first substrate, the first MEMS substrate, the second substrate and the packaging substrate are provided with electrical inter-connects.

An accelerometer arrangement and method are described for determining accelerations of an inground tool. First and second triaxial accelerometers are supported such that a normal sensing axis of the first triaxial accelerometer is at least generally orthogonal to the normal sensing axis of the second triaxial accelerometer for determining the accelerations along the three orthogonal axes based on a combination of sensing axis outputs from one or both of the triaxial accelerometers. A weaker sensing axis of one triaxial accelerometer can be supported at least approximately normal to a weaker sensing axis of another triaxial accelerometer such that the weaker axes are not used. The triaxial accelerometers can be supported such that one axis of one accelerometer can be redundant with respect to another axis of another accelerometer. One triaxial accelerometer can be mounted on a tilted plane with respect to another triaxial accelerometer.

A microelectromechanical device is provided that includes a mobile rotor and a fixed stator in a device plane. Moreover, a fixed wall defines a wall plane that is adjacent to the device plane and a motion limiter is provided to prevent the rotor from coming into direct physical contact with the fixed wall. The motion limiter includes a shock absorber that extends from the rotor to the stator and a fixed stopper structure that protrudes from the fixed wall toward the shock absorber.