Open-loop and Closed-loop high-end accelerometer
platforms for high demanding applications
P. Zwahlen, D. Balmain, S. Habibi, P.Etter,
F.Rudolf, R. Brisson
Colibrys SA
Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland
Pascal.Zwahlen@colibrys.com
Abstract—This article reviews the two accelerometer
platforms Colibrys has developed: open-loop and closed-
loop platforms. Both of them are set to be best-in-class in
their respective markets. With these two platforms
Colibrys is further strengthening its market leader
position into the high performance applications. A full
review of the MEMS, the packaging, the electronics and
control loop principle that have made possible a new
endeavor into the high-end market is provided.
Keywords—accelerometer; open-loop; closed-loop;
Sigma-Delta; high performance
I. INTRODUCTION
While most of the MEMS developments have been
focused on low cost and low performance markets,
driven by the automotive, consumer electronics and
smartphone businesses, Colibrys has taken up the
challenge to develop medium cost and high
performance MEMS inertial sensors dedicated to high
reliability, harsh environment applications. In order to
address the different high demanding market
applications, two different accelerometer technological
platforms have been brought to their highest-level of
performance: Open-loop capacitive pendulous mass
accelerometer and closed-loop capacitive pendulous
mass accelerometer. These two platforms are the
basis for serving a large panel of demanding
applications.
This article reviews the key parameters that are
required for various demanding applications and relate
them to MEMS design and technology, the packaging
integration, the electronic interface and control
principles that have allowed to achieve the high
performances on the open-loop and closed-loop
platforms. After highlighting the performances reached,
the different applications that can be addressed by
these 2 platforms will be reviewed.
II. TECHNOLOGICAL PLATFORMS VS.
MARKET SEGMENTATION
Amended publication from IEEE/ION PLANS 2016 Conference in Savannah, GA, April 11th – 14th 2016
Ph. Ullah, V. Ragot
Sagem
Argenteuil, France
Colibrys has developed two high performance
accelerometer platforms: one based on open-loop
operation and the other based on closed-loop.
A. Open-loop platform
A second generation of the open-loop platform has
been revisited, using the same basic concept of charge
balancing loop developed in the 1st generation [1],
which was instrumental to Colibrys’ accelerometer line
(MS9000 & VS9000) success. Identified room for
improvement were the following:
• Bias stability: A low leakage technology has
been chosen, together with a differential topology
robust to parasitics, which leads to enhanced
stability.
• Noise: Noise of the 1st generation ASIC can in
some cases be a limiting factor especially for
seismic, structural health monitoring and drilling
applications. The second version went through a
thorough noise analysis, resulting in the
implementation of an improved topology based
on a pseudo differential amplification chain and
thus improving immunity to analog ground noise.
• Linearity: Although the concepts of the charge
balancing developed within the first generation
were strong, further improvements have been
identified and implemented.
• Bandwidth: Larger bandwidth (1.5 kHz at 5% or
5 kHz at -3 dB) has been enabled by faster
operating sequencing rate of the schematic
thanks to design adjustments made at circuit
level. The MEMS frequency response has been
accordingly adapted and allows tuning based on
the final application need.
These performance improvements allow to further
strengthen Colibrys’ position in the vibration market
with the VS1000 product targeted at applications like
train bogie monitoring and structural health monitoring.
Leveraging on these same basic concepts, an
extended operating temperature range [-40, +150]°C
with intermittent survivability up to 175°C product
version has been developed: the new TS1000T is set
to serve markets in the oil & gas industry such as down-
hole drilling and measurement while drilling. The
inertial tactical grade application will be addressed with
the MS1000 product which is under development,
using the same electronics but with an improved
MEMS design reducing its sensitivity to mounting
stress, thus further improving bias stability.
B. Closed-loop platform
Although pushed to its performance limit, the open-loop
platform is not able to address the very high-end
(navigation grade inertial) market where very high bias
stability, high linearity, low noise and large signal
bandwidth are required. Such high-demanding
technical specifications can no more be met with an
open-loop concept. Indeed the underlying governing
models are too constraint, yielding to contradictory
design trade-offs and ultimately not enough design
variables. On the other hand, the beauty of the closed-
loop approach is that it allows to unlock these design
trade-offs thus decoupling each specification
requirements. The design latitude offered by the closed-
loop platform for the key bias stability, noise, linearity
and signal bandwidth specifications are listed below:
 Bias stability: Commonly a large contributor to
bias instability comes from the MEMS
mechanics and is thus scaled by the
mechanical spring constant (as determined by
the maximum allowed mass displacement).
While the open-loop concept requires trade-
offs between linearity and bias stability, these
constraints are decoupled in the closed-loop
approach. The MEMS accelerometer can thus
be designed with a lower spring constant
compared to the open-loop platform, thus
making a performance differentiator. The
closed loop concept has however additional
terms that will degrade the bias stability.
Significant design effort on the electronics and
control loop have been focused at reducing
these bias instability contributors (voltage
reference, detection circuit and parasitic
capacitance offset) to negligible value as
described in Error! Reference source not
found..
 Noise: fundamental resonance mode damping
does no more need to be provided by gas
pressure inside the accelerometer sealed
cavity but is achieved by the actuator motor.
Brownian noise can thus be minimized and
made a non-dominant noise source.
 Linearity: Closed-loop operation guarantees
minimal mass excursion around its servo
position. In addition, the electrostatic actuation
Amended publication from IEEE/ION PLANS 2016 Conference in Savannah, GA, April 11th – 14th 2016
force (which is quadratic with voltage) is
linearized thanks to the time averaging effect of
the Sigma-Delta servo principle (calibrated
pulse train). Extremely high linearity can thus
be achieved with closed-loop operation.
 Signal bandwidth: Operating in servo mode
guarantees inherently large signal bandwidth
(above 10 kHz). This is of specific interest in
inertial navigation and guidance applications
where precise time stamp of position data is
required. Additionally, vibration monitoring
application could also benefit from this large
signal bandwidth.
These benefits are traded off with additional
computing power at high sampling frequency yielding
to increased power consumption compared to open-
loop operated accelerometer. This complexity also
affects the cost and size of the sensor.
The closed-loop platform has presently been tuned for
the inertial navigation applications with key focus on
bias stability. Its potential goes far beyond the sole
inertial market, but could in principle serve the seismic
monitoring, structural health monitoring, geoseismic
imaging or even large bandwidth, high linearity
vibration applications.
Some market segments like AHRS for heavy
helicopters require fast start-up time. This puts heavy
design constraints on the device performance under
warm-up. Indeed, guaranteeing signal stability output
under thermal transient requires to minimize thermal
spatial gradient inside the MEMS and between the
MEMS and the temperature sensor. This point has
been tackled both at the MEMS design level and at
the packaging level (see below dedicated sub-section
III and IV).
C. Market survey
Excellent product performance level for both open-
loop and closed loop MEMS platforms has been
reached and is further confirmed through a DARPA
published survey [3] on accelerometers signal stability
performance vs. SWaP-C (a figure of merit compiling
Size x Weight x Power x Cost) and illustrated in Fig.
1. In this survey an old generation open-loop platform
(i.e. MS9000) was already well positioned compared
to MEMS competing products. As a forward looking
product performance, the new MS1000 inertial
products under development, based on the new open-
loop platform has been positioned in this diagram. The
performance potential demonstrated by the new
open-loop platforms reaches that of published MEMS
closed-loop accelerometer and approaches that of
quartz servo accelerometer. In parallel, in a joint
Colibrys – Sagem development, a new class of high-
end closed-loop MEMS accelerometer platform (Aida)
has been established that reaches the best quartz
servo accelerometers on the market (see dark green
marker in the plot of Fig. 1).
 III. MEMS DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
Presently, all MEMS accelerometers manufactured at
Colibrys are based on out-of-plane spring-mass
capacitive technology. Out-of-plane is a baseline
choice because it offers large signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) compared to the in-plane counterparts. Some
have nevertheless attempted to design in-
Fig. 1. Accelerometer signal stability vs. SWaP-C.
The Colibrys accelerometer used in this survey is
a MS9000. Next generation Colibrys open-loop
and closed-loop accelerometer have been added
in this plot.
plane accelerometer into complicated technology
process flow to bring SNR values closer to that of out-
of-plane [4]. Because of the out-of-plane basic design
choice, bulk silicon micromachining on full thickness
silicon wafer is deployed, resorting to both DRIE and
wet anisotropic etching alternatives. In addition, the
electrode capping relies on Silicon Fusion Bonding
(SFB) technology thus ensuring a hermetic seal. This
technological choice which requires high temperature
process is motivated by 2 reasons: it ensures
excellent parasitic capacitance stability (thanks to
stress relaxation occurring at high temperature and
the sealing material limited to silicon and its oxidized
state) and low level of humidity (thanks to the high
temperature process of SFB) offering excellent
immunity against common stiction issues in MEMS
manufacturing.
Two MEMS design platforms have been developed
thus offering product design flexibility depending on
the markets to be addressed. The first one
(nicknamed SPAC) is based on wet anisotropic
etching. It is a robust and well mastered process
offering high shock resistance and excellent cross-
axis sensitivity rejection. The second platform
(nicknamed AIDA_SENS) is based on DRIE etching.
It offers the benefit of compact and improved design
flexibility. Furthermore, mechanical decoupling
technique together with soft die attach have been
Amended publication from IEEE/ION PLANS 2016 Conference in Savannah, GA, April 11th – 14th 2016
implemented to reduce transmitted stress from the die
attach to the sensitive cell. In addition, well-thought
heat flow through the structure allows to reduce
spatial thermal gradients. All these design features
put together resulted in a very high bias stability (300
μg end of life) and is the baseline for the high-end
navigation grade closed-loop accelerometer. This
design not only offers improved raw bias cancellation,
but also reduces bias temperature dependency
whether under steady-state condition or transient
regime as is the case under warm-up.
Both of these MEMS platforms can further be tuned
for market specific needs (inertial, vibration or
seismic) such as Vibration Rectification Error (VRE or
non-linearity even orders), bandwidth or Brownian
noise by controlling the gas damping and its squeeze
film effect. For inertial market applications, even
orders non-linearity needs to be minimized as it
generates offset shift (the so-called Vibration
Rectification Error) under high vibration environment.
Reducing even orders non-linearity (or VRE) requires
to tune the accelerometer transfer function such that
it behaves as a pure spring mass damped system.
However, at low inter-electrode gaps the gas damping
is not operating in purely linear regime vs. gas
squeezing. Gas escape path have thus been added
on both MEMS platforms. For the vibration market,
large bandwidth is desired, and is similarly addressed
by designing gas escape path. For the seismic
application, Brownian noise can also be tuned to
some extent by acting on pressure but needs to be
traded off against modal damping. This trade-off can,
as already discussed, be fully unlocked by operating
in closed-loop.
IV. PACKAGING
A. Open-loop platform
The packaging for the new open-loop platform
(VS1000 & TS1000T series) has been designed with
the aim to maintain Form-Fit with the VS9000 &
MS9000 series. This package is further illustrated in
Fig. 2.
B. Closed-loop platform
For the closed-loop platform, the packaging has been
designed, by putting all performance critical and
humidity sensitive components inside a hermetically
sealed package. Furthermore, it has been designed
to meet the stringent warm-up specification, which
puts tight constraint on minimizing thermal spatial
gradient. This can be achieved in two ways: one
approach is by working with high thermal conductivity
ceramic material like AlN and another approach is to
work at the design level to create thermal iso-
potential. For ease of integration the second design
approach has been favored. An illustration of the final
package integration is given in Fig. 3.
V. ELECTRONIC INTERFACE
 A. Open-loop platform
The electronic of the open-loop platform has been
developed with special emphasis on bandwidth, noise
and linearity and offering a version with extended
temperature operating range [-40, 150]°C with 175°C
intermittent survivability depending on the final
product customization. The full amplification chain is
based on differential circuitry with the first stage
implementing a charge balancing loop concept, a
second stage implementing a programmable gain
amplifier and
Fig 2. Open-loop (VS1000 & TS1000T) platform in its
LCC-20 package
Fig 3. Aida closed-loop accelerometer platform in its
LCC-44 package.
a final low-pass filter efficiently eliminating all high
frequency contents from the time sequencing inherent
to the charge balancing loop. The differential topology
allows to efficiently reject common-mode noise
sources and interferences. It increases at no cost the
dynamic range by a factor of 2. The signal output is
thus provided in a differential format. In addition, it
implements safety critical routine with overload
detection and recovery after shock.
B. Closed-loop platform
The electronic of the closed-loop platform has been
developed to minimize offset contributors. This is
done by double sampling techniques, thus eliminating
the source of short-term correlated offset contributors
inherent to the electronic circuits like charge injection,
by directing all signal samples through the same
operational amplifiers and by analyzing the circuit
behavior to a known signal perturbation as is
described in [5]. All these actions have resulted in
excellent offset stability and good 1/f noise rejection.
Indeed 1/f noise corner frequency has been brought
down to values below 0.1Hz.
Amended publication from IEEE/ION PLANS 2016 Conference in Savannah, GA, April 11th – 14th 2016
The signal output delivered is inherently digital due to
the Sigma-Delta control principle, thus simplifying the
system level integration.
VI. CONTROL PRINCIPLE
For its closed-loop platform, Colibrys jointly with
Sagem has implemented a Sigma-Delta control
principle. This topology has been chosen as it allows
to substitute amplitude quantization with temporal
quantization. This concept overcomes the difficulty
associated with high resolution amplitude data
converters. In this case, high frequency sampling is
required, which is easily implemented in modern
electronic circuits. Furthermore Sigma-Delta principle
is well adapted to low-frequency signals like
acceleration. In addition, the MEMS topology with its
shared electrode for sensing and actuation is well
suited to time-multiplexed systems. Working with a
train of fixed pulse width actuation force intrinsically
guarantees linearization of the electrostatic force
(which is quadratic with voltage).
VII. TEST RESULTS
A. Open-loop platform
The open-loop platform has reached excellent
performances relative to its class. The open-loop
electronic circuit has been fully redesigned with
special focus on linearity, bias stability and noise. The
electronic alone provides excellent signal output
stability as is illustrated in Fig. 4, demonstrating
electronic offset stability in the class of 75 ppm. This
measurement is done with a fixed capacitance input
bench, corresponding to a non-moving seismic mass
accelerometer. The plot shows the differential output
residues over the full temperature range [-40, +150]°C
and after 3rd order polynomial temperature
compensation.
Based on this open-loop ASIC electronic, product
performance is further reported here for a 2g full
scale accelerometer (here the TS1002T). The bias
temperature slope is below 100 g/°C and bias
residues (after 3rd order polynomial fit) below 600 g
or 300 ppm FS (Full Scale) over the full temperature
range of [-40; 150]°C as illustrated in Fig.5
Fig 4. Open-loop ASIC voltage differential output
residues after 3rd order temperature
compensation
 Compared to the bias stability of the electronic alone
(75 ppm FS), a large portion of the accelerometer bias
stability is to be attributed to mounting stress of the
MEMS itself. We will further improve the bias stability
attributed to the sensitivity of the MEMS mounting
stress, in our next generation accelerometers
(MS1000) targeted at tactical-grade inertial market
applications.
Scale factor values measured for this same 2g high
temperature tilt sensor gives temperature slope of
<120 ppm/°C, while thermal residues after 3rd order
temperature polynomial fit gives values < 300 ppm
as illustrated in Fig. 6.
Non-linearity measurements performed on the
Fig 7. IEEE non-linearity of the TS1002T product
TS1002T results in typical value within +/-0.3% when
expressed in the IEEE standard as illustrated in Fig.
7.

TABLE I. TS1002 PERFORMANCES

Performance (Typical) Tested values
Full scale 2g
Noise 7 g/√Hz
Bias temperature residues 300 g (rms)
Long term bias stability 1800 g
Scale factor temperature
300 ppm (rms)
residues
Misalignment 1 mrad
Linearity (IEEE) 0.3 % FS

Fig 5. Bias stability performance reached by the new open-
loop MEMS accelerometer (here TS1002T of 2g FS) over
an extended temperature range.
Note:
Long term bias stability represents the residual error defined after
applying following environmental conditions: powered life test
500h@150°C, 60 temp cycling – 50 to 150°C, random vibration @
130°C (20grms/10-2’000 Hz); shock @ 130°C (100g / 2 ms / 12’000
shocks).

The overall performance of the open-loop platform in

Fig 6. Scale factor performance reached by the new open-loop
MEMS accelerometer (here a TS1002T of 2g FS) over
an extended temperature range
Amended publication from IEEE/ION PLANS 2016 Conference in Savannah, GA, April 11th – 14th 2016
case of the TS1002T product is given in Table I.
Further development are pushing this open-loop
concept to its ultimate limit: thermal bias residues < 60
ppm FS are reachable with an improved MEMS
sensor, while noise levels of sub 1 g/√Hz is
envisioned with an ASIC re-design. These new
developments will set new product standards serving
the mid-range market such as tactical-grade inertial
mission, AHRS, flight control, north finding, platform
Stabilization and UAV autopilot and class-B seismic
monitoring.
B. Closed-loop platform
The closed-loop accelerometer platform has been
brought to navigation-grade performances featuring
the following excellent results (and published at the
ISS 2015 conference [2]) in case of an acceleration
range of 15g: Bias performance is illustrated in Fig. 8
 and features bias temperature slope < 30 g/°C and These performances open up a wide spectrum of
bias residues <20 g (rms). applications ranging from INS targeted at both civilian
and military aeronautic navigation, and seismic
Scale Factor performance for the closed-loop imaging for oil and gas exploration.
platform is also excellent featuring scale factor
temperature slope < 20 ppm/°C and scale factor
residues < 30 ppm (rms) as is illustrated in Fig. 9.

Uncompensated After thermal calibration

2000 100

80
1500

60
1000
40

500
20
Bias error (µg)

Bias error (µg)

0 0

-20
-500

-40
-1000 MEMS1 - 11 µg RMS
-60
MEMS2 - 8 µg RMS
MEMS3 - 5 µg RMS
-1500
-80
MEMS4 - 16 µg RMS
MEMS5 - 13 µg RMS
-2000 -100
MEMS6 - 12 µg RMS
-40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 -40 - 9 µg-20
MEMS7 RMS 0 20 40 60 80
Temperature (°C) MEMS8 - 13 µg RMS Temperature (°C)

Fig 8. Bias stability performance reached for the Aida closed-loop MEMS accelerometer. Left figure is for
uncompensated bias signal and right figure are the bias residues after 3rd order polynomial fit.

Uncompensated After thermal calibration

2000 100

80
1500

60
1000
Scale factor error (ppm)

Scale factor error (ppm)

40

500
20

0 0

-20
-500

-40
-1000 MEMS1 - 7 ppm RMS
-60- 12 ppm RMS
MEMS2
MEMS3 - 20 ppm RMS
-1500
-80- 16 ppm RMS
MEMS4
MEMS5 - 17 ppm RMS
-2000 -100- 19 ppm RMS
MEMS6
-40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80
MEMS7 - 7 ppm RMS
Temperature (°C) Temperature (°C)
MEMS8 - 7 ppm RMS

Fig 9. Scale factor performance reached for the Aida closed-loop MEMS accelerometer. Left figure is for
uncompensated scale factor and right figure are the scale factor residues after 3rd order polynomial fit.

VIII. CONCLUSIONS
The long-term signal output stability, captured
through accelerated aging and corresponding to a 4 Achieved performances with the open-loop platform
year operational life assuming an Arrhenius law with show the potential of outperforming existing MEMS
energy activation of 1eV/mol, is kept below 80 g, closed-loop accelerometer and approaching that of
as is illustrated in Fig. 10. quartz servo accelerometer. On the other hand, the
closed-loop platform is establishing itself as a best-in-
The overall performance of the Aida closed-loop class accelerometer for inertial navigation.
platform is listed in Table II.
 
Amended publication from IEEE/ION PLANS 2016 Conference in Savannah, GA, April 11th – 14th 2016
 
 With this article, Colibrys is demonstrating its further
renewed position into the high-end market, ideally TABLE II. AIDA PERFORMANCES
positioned to serve demanding applications in terms
of high reliability under harsh environment. Performance (Typical) Tested values
Full scale 15 g
Noise 2 g/√Hz
The developed platforms are now the basis for new
derivative products tuned to meet the specificity of Bias temperature residues 20 g (rms)
each applications. This ground work and the credibility Long term bias stability (4
Colibrys has acquired over the years in the 120 g
years)
accelerometer business, sets-up a new milestone for Scale factor temperature
future MEMS development sensors. 20 ppm (rms)
residues
Misalignment 25 rad (rms)
Warm-up 2 g/min
Vibration Rectification Error 1 g/g2
Bandwidth 10 kHz

Fig 10. Accelerated ageing test. Ageing is performed under 1g

orientation at 90°C for 15 days

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Amended publication from IEEE/ION PLANS 2016 Conference in Savannah, GA, April 11th – 14th 2016