Angular velocity sensor

US5600065A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Motorola, Inc. · US

Inventors

• Barun Kar · Sunnyvale, US
• Guang X. Li · Gilbert, US
• Zuoying L. Zhang · Ithaca, US
• Eric Joseph · Nürnberg, DE
• Frank A. Shemansky, Jr. · New Hope, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Oct 25, 1995
• Grant date: Feb 4, 1997
• Expiry date: Oct 25, 2015

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01C19/5719
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

Converting a Coriolis force into an electrical signal, an electro-mechanical transducer (10) is a field effect transistor (18) having angular velocity sensing capabilities. A gate electrode (16) is suspended over a channel region (60) of a substrate (31), is biased at a desired potential, and is oscillated along an axis (40). The gate electrode (16) and the substrate (31) are rotated about a different axis (41) at an angular velocity (44). The resulting Coriolis force displaces the suspended gate electrode (16) along yet another axis (42) which modulates a current (53) in the channel region (60) of the substrate (31). The amplitude of the current (53) describes the magnitude of the angular velocity (44).