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Self-Clocking Electro-Mechanical Sigma-Delta Modulator Quadrature Error

Cancellation for MEMS Gyroscope

Conference Paper · January 2019

DOI: 10.1109/MEMSYS.2019.8870630

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 SELF-CLOCKING ELECTRO-MECHANICAL SIGMA-
DELTA MODULATOR QUADRATURE ERROR
CANCELLATION FOR MEMS GYROSCOPE
Fang Chen1, Jiebin Gu1, Pejwaak Salimi2, Michael Kraft2 and Xinxin Li1
1
The State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and
Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, CHINA
2
Catholic University of Leuven, ESAT, Leuven, Belgium
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a novel electromechanical
sigma-delta modulator (EM-) closed-loop quadrature
error cancellation technique for the sense mode of a MEMS
vibratory gyroscope. The interface circuit system adopts a
quadrature sigma-delta modulator structure, which allows
in-phase and quadrature decomposition to efficiently
realize noise shaping and quadrature error cancellation.
Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed
quadrature sigma-delta modulator (Q-)control loop
results in better noise and bias drift performance when
compared with an EM- single-loop architecture.
Measurement results showed that the proposed quadrature
EM-gyroscope achieved -80dB quadrature error
cancellation within a bandwidth of 64Hz, and an
approximately 5.5-fold improvement in bias instability
(decreasing the bias instability from 5°/h to 0.9°/h),
compared to the same gyroscope operating in a single-loop
EM-.
INTRODUCTION
The gyroscope quadrature error motion is defined as
the direct coupling of the drive mode displacement to the
sense mode of the gyroscope and leads to non-diagonal
terms in the spring matrix of the gyroscope dynamics.
Quadrature error motion is inevitable, which is the main
source of performance degradation in gyroscopes [1]. The
phase difference between the Coriolis force signal and the
quadrature error signal is 90°, suggesting that the
quadrature error can be rejected by using a phase-sensitive
demodulation. However, this phase difference is difficult to
accurately compensate in the demodulator; therefore the
rate output will be contaminated and thus drastically
degrade the performance of the system.
There are several approaches to tackle the quadrature
error problem, such as calibrating the gyroscope offset by
using a combination of the estimated values of the phase as
a function of temperature and the demodulated quadrature
signal, thereby estimating the value of the offset drift [2].
Another common approach is to suppress the quadrature
error using electromechanical quadrature cancellation. This
is achieved with additional mechanical electrodes in the
gyroscope sensing element [3]. These electrodes are used
to generate electrostatic forces in phase with the drive
motion to cancel the unwanted quadrature force. This
method was applied to open-loop gyroscope systems and
has achieved remarkable performance in term of bias
instability and noise floor [4]. However, it is not applicable
to any MEMS gyroscope since the mechanical gyroscope
design requires both Coriolis force feedback electrodes and
quadrature cancellation electrodes, respectively. This
978-1-7281-1610-5/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
results in a larger and more complex sensing element.
Gyroscope sense mode electromechanical sigma-
delta modulator (EM-) closed-loop control strategy is
based on the principle of a sigma-delta modulation, which
combines sampling at rates well above the Nyquist rate
with negative feedback and filtering in order to trade-off
resolution in time with that in amplitude. It can preserve all
advantages of closed-loop operation and concurrently
produce a digital output in the form of a pulse density
modulated bitstream [5]. Single-loop EM- force
feedback gyroscope systems have proven to be
advantageous to have lower sensitivity to design
parameters of the MEMS sensing element and achieve
better bandwidth, linearity, dynamic range and bias
instability than open-loop configurations [6, 7, 8]. However,
quadrature error in single loop EM- architectures still
seriously degrades the performance of gyroscopes.
In this paper, we addressed this problem by
presenting a new quadrature sigma-delta modulator (Q-
) closed-loop interface for a high quality factor
gyroscope. The interface control system employs complex
filtering embedded in the gyroscope EM- loop to
efficiently realize noise shaping and quadrature error
cancellation without attenuation of the Coriolis signal. The
closed-loop operation is based on demodulation and re-
modulation to form an in-phase and a quadrature EM-
channel, with a quantized electrostatic feedback force on
the proof mass. The interface circuit system was
implemented in hardware based on a dual quantization
field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The circuit system
clock was generated using a self-clocking scheme, which
provides a fixed ratio between the circuit sampling
frequency and the gyroscope drive resonance frequency,
thus also suppressed the temperature-induced frequency
signal drift. In combination with quadrature error
cancellation, the proposed EM- gyroscope is also
capable of achieving lower offset drift, which is essential
for the operation of the navigation system.
METHODOLOGY
DESIGN OF SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
The basic principle of single-loop EM- force
feedback interface is based on a pulse density modulated
bitstream which contains both the Coriolis force
information and quadrature error to control the proof mass
position of the gyroscope sensing element. Therefore, a
demodulation and re-modulation process is required to
extract and construct the quadrature error compensation
mechanism. The proposed quadrature EM- closed-
loop control system for the sense mode of a MEMS
gyroscope is shown in Fig.1.
700 MEMS 2019, Seoul, KOREA, 27-31 January 2019
 2Sin(ωxt+j)
In-phase
Components
2cos(ωxt) Coriolis force
1 1  LPF(z)
1 yIi
-Ω(t) Fc
 mcAv My ω Kcv
s2  y s  ω2y
- Qy
Charge Multi-bit
 LPF(z)
2 yIq
Ffb Sense mode of the Amplifier Quantizer Quadrature
Fq=Fqmsin(ωxt) Gyroscope Components
2Cos(ωxt+j)
Quadrature error Feedback
force 2Sin(ωxt+j)
force -
1  HPF(z)
 loop filter
H(z)
YCoriolis

Bitstream
1-bit Quantizer

  loop filter YQuad

2
HPF(z) H(z) Bitstream
-
Feedback
voltage to
2Cos(ωxt+j)
force
Kvf Mux
Digitalized

Figure 1: Schematic of the gyroscope sense mode closed-loop system with EM- quadrature error
cancellation. Coriolis force and quadrature error are orthogonally demodulated, and re-modulated in two EM-
force feedback loops.
In Fig.1, there are two control loops termed in-phase signal was recorded by a data acquisition system. The ring-
EM- loop and quadrature EM- loop to force down test is shown in Fig.3, indicating that the quality
rebalance the Coriolis force (Fc) and the quadrature error factor of the drive and sense mode reaches 510k and 8k,
force (Fq), respectively. The sense mode displacement is respectively. The mechanical parameters of the MEMS
converted to the differential variation of capacitances, and gyroscope used for design and simulation are listed in
then transferred to the voltage through a low noise readout Tab.1. This gyroscope has only one set of fixed sensing
circuit with a conversion gain Kcv. This sensing voltage is electrodes and feedback electrodes. Therefore, the control
digitized by a multi-bit quantizer and then passed on to the system in-phase channel bitstream YCoriolis(t) and quadrature
digital demodulation part to obtain the quadrature channel bitstream YQuad(t) are time-division-multiplexed
component Ylq(t) and in-phase component Yli(t). Ω(t) is the (TDM), and then applied to the feedback electrodes using
input angular rate, YCoriolis(t) and YQuad(t) are the outputs of a multiplexer, which operates at an integer multiple of the
angular rate channel bitstream and quadrature channel system sampling frequency (fs).
bitstream, respectively. x and Qx represent the drive mode qy
resonant frequency and quality factor, while y and Qy
represent the sense mode resonant frequency and quality
Feedback Feedback
factor. Since the Coriolis force signal due to the input Sense Electrode
Electrode- Electrode+
angular rate is modulated to the vicinity of the resonant
Figure 2: Schematic diagram of the MEMS gyroscope
frequency of the drive mode, a re-modulation process is
sense electrodes and feedback electrodes arrangement.
required to construct the in-phase feedback voltage and
quadrature feedback voltage. A 4th-order band-pass EM-
Table 1: Main mechanical parameters of the gyroscope
 noise shaping structure is used for the gyroscope
sense mode in-phase and quadrature error modulator, Parameter Drive mode Sense mode
taking advantage of single-bit and multi-bit quantization of
Resonant frequency 4660Hz 4754Hz
a . Both band-pass EM-s are designed in such a
Quality factor 510000 8000
way that its center frequency coincides with the gyroscope
Mass of proof mass 40×10-9kg 40×10-9kg
drive mode frequency. Therefore, Yli(t) and Ylq(t) are moved
Nominal capacitive gap 2m 1.6m
to the center frequency of the designed band-pass EM-
Total nominal capacitive 2.4pF 2.7pF
s.
The MEMS gyroscope sensing element used in this
5.0
work has been described in [9]. The main structure 3.8
(a) (b)
comprises a circular outer frame, a circular inner frame and
a single central anchor. Once the gyroscope experiences an 3.0
Voltage(V)
Voltage(V)

angular rate Ωx(t) about the x-axis, the inertial proof mass
2.5
vibrates and generates the angular deflection about the y-
axis, which provides a measure of the Coriolis acceleration. 2.0
The operating mechanism of the gyroscope is illustrated in
Fig.2. Ring-down tests were firstly implemented to
1.2 0
accurately characterize quality factor of the gyroscope 0 25 50 75 100 0 5 10 15 20
Time(s) Time(s)
resonance modes. The gyroscope working mode is initially
actuated at resonance with a constant amplitude using a Figure 3: Ring-down test results of the drive (a) and
digital phase locked loop (PLL) and a amplitude controller. sense mode (b) for the gyroscope to determine the Q-
Then, the actuation force was stopped, and the decaying factors.

701
 The simulated (Simulink model) output bitstream mode amplitude as a 200/s input signal. The Quadrature
spectrum of the quadrature EM- gyroscope system EM- architecture achieved approximately 80dB
with a 200/s quadrature error is shown in Fig.4. The cancellation of the quadrature error and was thus in good
simulated final noise shaping notch is centered at 4760Hz agreement with the simulation results.
(sense mode resonant frequency), while the quadrature 0
signal is at 4660Hz (drive mode resonant frequency). The Quadrature Error
-20 Quadrature
system simulation results indicate that the quadrature EM-  system
High-order
 system achieves >80dB attenuation of the quadrature -40 Single-loop
 system Parasitic Notch
80dB
error.

PSD(dB)
-60
Cancellation
0 -80

-20 Quadrature -100

Quadrature
-40  system Error MEMS
Gyroscope Digital Circuit
-120
Single-loop
-60  system >80dB
PSD(dB)

-80
-100
-120
-140
-160 2
3 4
10 10 10
Frequency(Hz)
Figure 4: Simulated output PSD of the gyroscope
quadrature (green) and single-loop EM- system
(red). An attenuation of over 80dB of the gyroscope
quadrature error signal was achieved in a Simulink
model.
RESULTS
The hardware implementation of the quadrature EM-
 gyroscope system follows the functionality of the
simulation model. Lid seam sealing with activated getter
material enables and maintains a high vacuum inside the
package cavity. In this work, ceramic leadless chip carrier,
Kovar lids with a thin film deposited getter, and a gold-
nickel (Au-Ni) alloy solder were used for high vacuum
packaging of the gyroscope sensing element. The interface
circuit system is divided into two parts, namely the analog
front-end and the back-end digital control circuits. The
digital circuit part mainly comprised a multi-bit analog-to-
digital converter (ADC), digital-to-analog converter (DAC)
-140 2 3 4 5
10 10 10 10
Frequency(Hz)
Figure 5: Measured spectra of the output bitstream of a
single-loop (red) and the quadrature EM- gyroscope
(blue) achieving a quadrature error cancellation of 80dB;
inset: photograph of the MEMS gyroscope prototype with
5
10 a PCB size of 6cm×3cm
The startup bias output of the gyroscope was
recorded while the circuit system was powering on. Fig.6
shows the measured output bias drift of the single-loop and
quadrature EM-gyroscope systems with and without
self-clocking scheme, respectively. These measurements
proved the effect of the quadrature EM- architecture
on the gyroscope performance. If the inherent quadrature
error signal in the single loop EM-gyroscope output
is not cancelled, it causes a high zero rate output (ZRO)
due to the phase errors in the feedback electronics. The
gyroscope zero rate output (ZRO) decreases by two to
three orders of magnitude with quadrature signal
cancellation. Furthermore, the presented self-clocking
scheme significantly reduces the effect of temperature
coefficient of frequency (TCF), improving the power-up
and setting times of the gyroscope.
2
With Quad. Cancellation (Self-clocking)
Without Quad.Cancellation (Self-clocking)
1
Without Quad.Cancellation (No Self-clocking)
Bias drift(°/s)

and signal processing units which were implemented based

on a FPGA chip to form the drive and sense control loops.
The gyroscope chip and the circuit components were
assembled on a standard printed circuit board (PCB) with
an overall size of 6cm×3cm and used a single power supply
of +5V. A self-clocking scheme based on the drive mode
resonance frequency was implemented. The high-Q
resonance of the gyroscope was used to generate a clean
reference clock (4660Hz), which also generated a 30MHz
system clock and 625kHz sampling frequency [9].
The performance of the implemented gyroscope
system was compared to the simulation results; Fig.5 shows
the measured spectrum of the bitstream, which was in good
agreement with the simulation results. The high-order
parasitic notch in the measured spectrum at 37kHz and
57kHz are due to additional parasitic resonant modes of the
gyroscope. The measured noise floor was -120dB within a
64Hz bandwidth which was 20dB higher than the
simulation results. In a single-loop EM- architecture,
there is a quadrature error signal at the notch center
frequency, which results in approximately the same sense
0
-1
-2
0 500 1000 1500
Time(s)
Figure 6: Measured bias output of EM- gyroscope
with and without quadrature cancellation during power up
Fig.7 shows the Allan variance graphs of the
gyroscope both with and without the quadrature
cancellation. The bias instability of the gyroscope was
improved from 5°/h to 0.9°/h with increasing averaging
time, indicating a 5.5-fold performance improvement, thus
confirming the advantages of the quadrature EM-
control loop. The angle random walk (ARW) of the
EM-gyroscope system with quadrature cancellation
was also measured, exhibiting a 3-fold improvement
compared to the system without quadrature cancellation.
These results indicated that a lower quadrature error, better

702
 ZRO and ARW performance were achieved, thus resulting performance of fully decoupled MEMS gyroscopes”,
in significant overall gyroscope performance J. Microelectromech. Syst, vol. 21, no.3, pp. 656-667,
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bandwidth of the system is determined by the electronic 0.1°/HR bias drift electronically matched tuning fork
filter stage in the sense-mode electronics. microgyroscope”, in Proc. Int. Conf. MEMS, Tucson,
2 AZ, Jan.13-17, 2008, pp. 6-9.
10
[5] F. Chen, X.X. Li, and M. Kraft, “Electromechanical
Without EM-Quad. sigma-delta modulators () force feedback
Cancellation
Bias Instability: ~5 °/Hr
interfaces for capacitive MEMS inertial sensors: A
1
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2016.
() (°/hr)

[6] F. Chen, H.L. Chang, W.Z. Yuan, G.M. Yuan, and M.

0 Kraft, “Design and implementation of an optimized
10
With EM-Quad.
Cancellation
Bias Instability: ~0.9 °/Hr
-1
10 0 1
10 10 10
(sec)
Figure 7: Allan variance graphs of the EM-
gyroscope with and without quadrature cancellation.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented a new quadrature EM-M
control loop for the sense mode of a high quality factor
MEMS gyroscope. The corresponding Simulink model was
established and simulations showed that over 80dB
quadrature error cancellation was achieved. The gyroscope
chip was die-level vacuum sealed with a getter to achieve a
high quality factor. The circuit system was designed and
implemented in a FPGA, based on a self-clocking dual
quantization technique. The experimental investigation of
the gyroscope system indicated an approximately 80dB
cancellation of the quadrature error and was in agreement
with the simulation results. Measurements of the gyroscope
system with and without the EM-M quadrature
cancellation showed a 5.5-fold better bias instability and a
ZRO improvement up to two to three orders of magnitude.
double closed-loop control system for MEMS vibratory
gyroscope”, IEEE Sensors J., vol. 14, no.1, pp. 184-196,
2014.
2 3
[7] F. Chen, H.L. Chang, W.Z. Yuan, R. Wilcock, and M.
10 Kraft, “Parameter optimization for a high-order band-
pass continuous-time sigma-delta modulator MEMS
gyroscope using a genetic algorithm approach”, J.
Micromech. Microeng., vol. 22, no.10, p.105006, 2012.
[8] F. Chen, Y. Zhao, J. C. Wang, H. S. Zou, M. Kraft and
X.X. Li, “A Single-side Fabricated Triaxis (111)-
Silicon Microaccelerometer With Electromechanical
Sigma-Delta Modulation”, IEEE Sensors J., vol. 18,
no.5, pp. 1859-1869, 2018.
[9] B. Sheng, F. Chen, C. Qian, D.C. Xu, S.W. Guo, and
X.X. Li, “Design of a dual quantization
electromechanical sigma-delta modulator MEMS
vibratory wheel gyroscope”, J. Microelectromech. Syst,
vol. 27, no2, pp. 218-230, 2018.
CONTACT
1. Xinxin Li, xxli@mail.sim.ac.cn
2. Fang Chen, xxli@mail.sim.ac.cn

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported in part by MOST of China
(2016YFA0200800), in part by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (61674160 and 61504159), in
part by National Key Research and Development Program
of China (2016YFA0200803), in part by the Frontier Key
Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (QYZDJ-
SSW-JSC001), and in part by the National Key Scientific
Instruments and Equipment Projects (61527818).

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