Microsystem Technologies

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-020-05175-z (0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().,-volV)

TECHNICAL PAPER

Performance optimization of SiC piezoresistive pressure sensor

through suitable piezoresistor design
Baohua Tian1,2 • Haiping Shang1 • Lihuan Zhao1 • Weibing Wang1

Received: 22 September 2020 / Accepted: 9 December 2020

Ó The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
Silicon carbide is considered as a more suitable material for piezoresistive pressure sensors in a high-temperature envi-
ronment due to its excellent characteristics. In this paper, fundamental research on the structural design of SiC piezore-
sistive pressure sensors was carried out through the finite element method (FEM) to accurately estimate the optimal output
characteristics. The effects of various boundary conditions on the deflection and stress distribution of SiC circular dia-
phragm were analyzed to determine the difference between the edge-clamped structure in traditional theory and the
bottom-fixed structure in actual pressure sensors. Furthermore, on the basis of appropriate boundary conditions, the design
considerations for SiC piezoresistors were discussed in detail to study the influence of different parameters on the
sensitivity and nonlinearity of pressure sensors, including the shape, placement, dimension, and connection methods with
metal lines. Both simulation results and theoretical analysis indicated that the suitable piezoresistor design can achieve
larger resistance variations in both longitudinal and transverse piezoresistors and less difference between them, which is
beneficial to the performance optimization of SiC piezoresistive pressure sensors.

1 Introduction sensors due to its excellent characteristics including wide

Pressure sensors for high-temperature environments have a
wide application demand in the petrochemical, aerospace,
and automotive fields (Phan et al. 2015). For instance,
automobile engines and jet engines often operate at tem-
peratures above 500 °C (Okojie et al. 2004). In the past few
decades, silicon has become the dominant material for
pressure sensors. However, the limitation of silicon mate-
rial in the electronic and thermomechanical properties
restricts its high-temperature sensing applications (Fahrner
et al. 2001; Wijesundara and Azevedo 2011). Silicon on
insulator (SOI) based pressure sensors can surpass the limit
operating temperature of silicon. However, the thermal
deformation of a silicon diaphragm becomes the ultimate
limiting factor when the temperature is greater than 500 °C
(Okojie et al. 1998). Silicon carbide (SiC) is considered as
the most promising material in high-temperature pressure
& Haiping Shang
shanghaiping@ime.ac.cn
1
Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
2
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049,
China
band-gap, high breakdown electric field, high thermal sta-
bility, and high chemical inertness (Nguyen et al. 2018a, b;
Jiang and Cheung 2009; Wieczorek et al. 2007).
With the continuous breakthrough of SiC wafer fabri-
cation and process technology, fruitful researches on all-
SiC piezoresistive pressure sensors have been carried out in
recent years (Okojie et al. 2015; Nguyen et al. 2018a, b;
Akiyama et al. 2011), which have significant advantages
including low cost, good linearity, and simple signal
detection (Lin et al. 1999). However, numerous studies
mainly focus on the exploration of novel manufacturing
processes and the realization of better output performance.
To illustrate, many processing methods have been suc-
cessively developed to solve the high difficulty in micro-
machining of SiC material due to the excellent mechanical
properties and chemical inertias, which include molten salt
corrosion, deep reactive ion etching, photoelectrochemical
etching, ultrasonic machining, mechanical milling, laser
etching, etc. (Okojie et al. 1998; Wieczorek et al. 2007;
Nguyen et al. 2018a, b; Akiyama et al. 2011; Okojie 2007).
At present, the key structural design of SiC piezoresistive
pressure sensors mainly relies on relevant studies on sili-
con-based pressure sensors and the personal experience of
researchers (Kumar and Pant 2016; Mohamad 2018;

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Farhath and Samad 2020; Belwanshi and Topkar 2016). 2 Various boundary conditions
However, due to the distinct differences in material prop-
erties, the research on the structural design of silicon-based 2.1 Governing equations
pressure sensors may not provide an accurate reference for
similar research on SiC. For instance, the various elastic To determine the suitable SiC piezoresistor design, the
coefficients of Si and SiC lead to a great difference in elastic deformation of SiC circular diaphragm under a
deflection and stress distribution of diaphragm. And the uniform pressure is firstly studied. A circular diaphragm is
discrepancy in piezoresistive coefficients directly affects chosen because it exhibits more uniform stress distribution
the final electrical output of the pressure sensor. So far, and less stress concentration compared with square and
there are few studies on the basic design of SiC pressure rectangular diaphragms. Due to the axial symmetry of
sensors. However, even at high temperatures, the structural external pressure, stress distribution, and boundary condi-
design is meaningful for all applications to achieve the tions of the diaphragm, it is convenient to use polar coor-
performance optimization. Therefore, it is necessary to dinates to define the relevant parameters. To obtain an
conduct fundamental research on the structural design of approximate linear relationship between the diaphragm
SiC piezoresistive pressure sensor, which not only provides deflection and the pressure, the maximum displacement of
reasonable guidelines for the performance optimization of the diaphragm should be within 1/5 the diaphragm thick-
SiC pressure sensor at room temperature but also provides ness according to the small deflection theory. Under a
the most basic guarantee for pressure measurement in a uniform pressure, the equilibrium equation of the circular
high-temperature environment. diaphragm is given by (Timoshenko and Woinowsky-
The piezoresistive pressure sensor is based on the Krieger 1959)
piezoresistive effect of semiconductor materials. Under a dMr
uniform pressure, the diaphragm deformation generates Mr þ r  Mt þ Qr r ¼ 0 ð1Þ
dr
stress in piezoresistors, which converts into a change in
resistivity. Therefore, the diaphragm and piezoresistors are The radial strain and tangential strain on the upper
the most important components of SiC piezoresistive surface of the diaphragm are respectively expressed as
pressure sensor. The diaphragm deformation is strongly d2 w du
dependent on its boundary conditions and the appropriate er ¼ z 2
¼z ð2Þ
dr dr
boundary conditions are important to estimate the output
z dw u
performance of sensors. Numerous theoretical and simu- et ¼  ¼z ð3Þ
r dr r
lation studies have been carried out on edge-clamped and
edge-supported structures (Jindal and Raghuwanshi 2014; The relationship between strain and stress in the dia-
Jindal et al. 2018; Kumar and Pant 2015). However, there phragm can be expressed as
    
are differences in boundary conditions between the above rr E 1 v er
structures and actual sensors, which may be unable to ¼ ð4Þ
rt 1  v2 v 1 et
accurately reflect the diaphragm deformation. In this paper,
the effects of various boundary conditions including edge- where E and v are respectively the Young’s modulus and
clamped and bottom-fixed on the deflection and stress Poisson’s ratio. According to the stress distribution in the
distribution of SiC circular diaphragm were analyzed diaphragm, the bending moment is given by
2 2 3
through the finite element method (FEM). Furthermore, the     d w
suitable SiC piezoresistor design is conducive to improving Mr 1 v 6 dr 2 7
¼ D 4 1 dw 5 ð5Þ
the output performance of the piezoresistive pressure sen- Mt v 1
sor. Based on the bottom-fixed structure with appropriate r dr
boundary conditions, various SiC piezoresistors with dif- where D is the flexural stiffness, which is given by
ferent shapes, positions, and dimensions were designed to
analyze the effects of these structural parameters on the Zt=2
Ez2 Et3
sensitivity and nonlinearity of sensors at room temperature. D¼ 2
dz ¼ ð6Þ
1v 12ð1  v2 Þ
Moreover, a novel piezoresistor structure is presented to t=2
keep the metal lines outside the diaphragm, and its output
where t is the thickness of the diaphragm.
characteristics are compared with that of the classical
Based on the above formulas, the differential equation
piezoresistor structure.
for small deflection bending of the circular diaphragm can
be expressed as

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Microsystem Technologies

   
1d d 1d dw P Firstly, the diaphragm thickness was set to 50 lm and
r r ¼ ð7Þ the applied pressure was 10 MPa. Figure 2 shows the
r dr dr r dr dr D
comparison of diaphragm displacement with different
where P is the applied pressure. Therefore, the rotation boundary conditions. It can be seen that the maximum
angle and displacement of the circular diaphragm can be displacement of bottom-fixed diaphragm and edge-clamped
expressed as diaphragm are respectively 2.41 lm and 1.97 lm, with a
pr 4 r2 deviation of 18.2%. And the displacement at the edge of
wðrÞ ¼  þ C1 þ C2 ln r þ C3 ð8Þ the bottom-fixed diaphragm is not zero but 0.07 lm. Then
64D 4
the comparison of radial stress in the diaphragm with dif-
dwðr Þ pr 3 r 1
uðr Þ ¼ ¼ þ C1 þ C2 ð9Þ ferent thicknesses is shown in Fig. 3. It can be observed
dr 16D 2 r
that the stress within the thinner diaphragm can be
where C1, C2, C3 are the constants determined by approximately calculated by edge-clamped structure, while
boundary conditions. there will be a great error for thicker diaphragm. Besides,
the stress distribution in the bottom-fixed structure extends
2.2 Bottom-fixed structure beyond the diaphragm edge. When the edge-clamped
structure is used for approximate analysis, the piezoresis-
The accurate boundary conditions in the geometric model tors cannot be placed outside the diaphragm edge because
are crucial to the output performance of pressure sensors. it cannot determine the stress distribution outside the dia-
Discrepancies in boundary conditions affect the deflection phragm. Therefore, the bottom-fixed structure with appro-
and stress distribution of the SiC diaphragm. As shown in priate boundary conditions is adopted to provide more
Fig. 1a, Timoshenko et al. analyzed the edge-clamped accurate solutions.
circular diaphragm with the radius of a based on the small Subsequently, the effects of the dimensions of the bot-
deflection theory and the boundary conditions are as tom-fixed structure on the diaphragm deformation were
follows analyzed. The fixed area at the bottom surface is changed
wðaÞ ¼ 0; uðaÞ ¼ 0; uð0Þ ¼ 0 by increasing the side length L of the structure while the
diameter of the diaphragm remains unchanged. As shown
However, the above assumption has some limitations in Fig. 4a, the maximum diaphragm displacement is
due to the difference in the boundary conditions between respectively 2.41 lm and 2.39 lm for the side length of
the edge-clamped structure and the actual pressure sensor. 1500 lm and 3000 lm, indicating that the influence of the
In the actual manufacturing process, the diaphragm is fixed area on the diaphragm deformation is negligible.
formed through deep cavity machining on SiC substrate Besides, the change in cavity depth h also has little effect
and its boundary conditions can be assumed as bottom- on the diaphragm deformation, as shown in Fig. 4b.
fixed, as shown in Fig. 1b. Timoshenko model may be
unable to accurately reflect the actual deformation of dia-
phragm. Therefore, various SiC diaphragm structures are
established to determine the effect of different boundary
conditions on the diaphragm deformation, as shown in
Fig. 1.
3
Bottom-fixed Edge-clamped
Displacement (μm)

0
-600 -400 -200 0 200 400 600
Distance from center (μm)

Fig. 2 Comparison of diaphragm displacement with different bound-

Fig. 1 a Edge-clamped diaphragm, b bottom-fixed diaphragm ary conditions

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Fig. 3 Comparison of radial 2500 900

Bottom-fixed Bottom-fixed
stress of the diaphragm with 2000 Edge-clamped Edge-clamped
different thickness: a 30 lm, 600
b 50 lm, c 70 lm, d 90 lm 1500

Radial stress (MPa)

Radial stress (MPa)

1000 300
500
0 0

-500
-300
-1000
-1500 -600
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Distance from center (μm) Distance from center (μm)
(a) (b)
450 300
Bottom-fixed Bottom-fixed
Edge-clamped Edge-clamped
300 200
Radial stress (MPa)

Radial stress (MPa)

150 100

0 0

-150 -100

-300 -200
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Distance from center (μm) Distance from center (μm)
(c) (d)

Fig. 4 Effects of the dimensions 5 5

2.45 1500μm 2.45 20μm
of the bottom-fixed structure on
2.4 2000μm 2.4 100μm
the diaphragm displacement: 4 4
2.35 2500μm 2.35 180μm
a different structure side
Displacement (μm)
Displacement (μm)

3000μm 260μm
lengths, b different cavity 2.3 2.3
3 -100-50 0 50 100 3 -100-50 0 50 100
depths

2 2

1 1

0 0
-600 -400 -200 0 200 400 600 -600 -400 -200 0 200 400 600
Distance from center (μm) Distance from center (μm)
(a) (b)

3 Theory and simulation In order to achieve a low nonlinearity error between the
diaphragm deflection and the applied pressure, the maxi-
3.1 Theory mum deflection of the diaphragm should be within 1/5 the
diaphragm thickness. Also, to prevent diaphragm damage
The dimension parameters of the diaphragm are designed within the measurement range, the maximum stress (rmax)
on the basis of the measurement range of pressure sensors. on the diaphragm should meet the following requirement
Under uniform pressure, the maximum deflection (wmax) is
located at the center of the diaphragm, which is expressed 3Pa2 rb
rmax ¼  ½r ¼ ð11Þ
as 4t2 n

3Pa4 ð1  v2 Þ where [r] is the allowable stress, n is the safety factor,

wmax ¼ ð10Þ and rb is fracture strength. The approximate dimensions of
16Et3
the diaphragm are determined based on the above design
principles. Moreover, thinner diaphragms can obtain higher

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sensitivity than thicker ones but are more nonlinear as well.
Assuming that the target measurement range of the
designed pressure sensor is 0–10 MPa, the diameter of the
circular diaphragm is selected as 1000 lm based on the
above considerations. And the thickness of the diaphragm
is 50 lm due to the limitation of actual process conditions
in our manufacturing scheme.
Based on the bottom-fixed structure with appropriate
boundary conditions in Sect. 2, the design considerations
for SiC piezoresistors are studied in detail. Under a uniform
pressure, the diaphragm satisfies the small deflection theory
and there is an approximately linear relationship between
the stress and applied pressure. The strain on the diaphragm
could be effectively transferred to the piezoresistor because
the piezoresistor is much thinner than the thickness of
diaphragm (Nguyen et al 2017). Assumed that
rl;t ¼ Kl;t P ð12Þ
where rl and rt are respectively the longitudinal stress
and the transverse stress. Kl and Kt are scale factors. The
interconnection of the piezoresistors is established by
means of the Wheatstone bridge. The longitudinal
piezoresistors (Rl) are perpendicular to the diaphragm edge
and the transverse piezoresistors (Rt) are parallel to the
diaphragm edge. The resistance variations of piezoresistors
are given by (Ned et al. 1998)
DRl ¼ Rl0 ðpl rl þ pt rt Þ / P ð13Þ
DRt ¼ Rt0 ðpl rl þ pt rt Þ / P ð14Þ
where DRl and DRt are respectively the resistance vari-
ation of longitudinal piezoresistor and transverse piezore-
sistor. Rl0 and Rt0 are respectively the initial value of
longitudinal and transverse piezoresistor. pl and pt are
respectively longitudinal and transverse piezoresistive
coefficients. Under a uniform pressure, the resistance
variations of piezoresistors can also be approximately
proportional to the applied pressure, P.
It is assumed that the initial value of piezoresistors is R.
When the input voltage is applied to the Wheatstone
bridge, the output voltage can be calculated as given below
Rt  Rl DRt  DRl
Vout ¼ Vin ¼ Vin ð15Þ
Rt þ Rl 2R þ DRt þ DRl
where Vout is the output voltage and Vin is the input
voltage. The Taylor expansion of formula (15) without
higher-order terms is given by
  "   #
Vout 1 DRt DRl 1 DRt 2 DRl 2
¼    ð16Þ
Vin 2 R R 4 R R
The sensitivity (S), one of the most important parame-
ters to evaluate the sensing characteristics of the pressure
sensor, is the relative change of output voltage per unit of
applied pressure, which is expressed as (Tran et al. 2018)
VFS 1
S¼ ð17Þ
Pmax Vin
where VFS is the full-scale output and Pmax is the
maximum applied pressure. The first one-order term in
formula (16) determines the sensitivity of pressure sensors.
Therefore, in order to improve the sensitivity, the
piezoresistors should experience a larger change in resis-
tance (DR/R) under a certain pressure.
Nonlinearity, one of the most important indexes of
sensor accuracy, is defined as the ratio of the deviation
between the real curve of voltage output and the fit-line to
the full-scale output. The fit-line used in this work is the
end-point line. The nonlinearity at a certain point can be
expressed as (Ruiz et al. 2014)
Vout ðPi Þ  PVmax
FS
Pi
NLðPi Þ ¼  100% ð18Þ
VFS
where Vout(Pi) is the output voltage at applied pressure
Pi. The number with the maximum absolute value in
NL(Pi) represents the degree of nonlinearity of pressure
sensors. Based on formulas (13), (14) and (16), to get a low
nonlinearity between the output voltage and applied pres-
sure, the second two-order term in formula (16) should be
minimized. In other words, the difference in resistance
variations between longitudinal and transverse piezoresis-
tors (DRl/R and DRt/R) should be as small as possible.
3.2 Simulation
The geometric model of SiC piezoresistive pressure sensor
was developed through finite element analysis software
COMSOL Multiphysics, as shown in Fig. 5. The side
length of the sensor chip is 2000 lm and the cavity depth is
150 lm. The diameter and thickness of the diaphragm are
1000 lm and 50 lm respectively. The piezoresistors are
connected with each other using platinum to form the
Wheatstone bridge. The properties of materials used in the
geometric model are shown in Table 1. Then, the fixed
constraint is defined at the bottom surface of the pressure
sensor, consistent with Fig. 1b. A variable pressure is
applied to the upper surface of the diaphragm and the
pressure range is set as 0–10 MPa with a step length of
1 MPa. The input voltage of 2.5 V is applied to the
Wheatstone bridge through the Piezoresistive Effect-
Boundary Currents Module.
The piezoresistor design plays a pivotal role in deter-
mining the output characteristics of SiC piezoresistive
pressure sensor, which can provide reference for high
temperature design. In this work, the effects of different
parameters of piezoresistors on the sensitivity and
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Table 1 Properties of materials

Properties Diaphragm and substrate Piezoresistors Pt

Density [kg/m3] 3210 3210 21,450

Young’s modulus [GPa] 168
Poisson’s ratio 0.38
Elastic constant [GPa]
c11 501 501
c12 111 111
c13 52 52
c33 553 553
c44 163 163
Resistivity [X m] 1.4 9 10–4 1.12 9 10–7

fabrication process. For minimizing the mechanical influ-

ence of metal lines on the diaphragm and the influence of
diaphragm deformation on metal lines, the specific struc-
ture of the piezoresistors is designed to keep metal lines
outside the diaphragm edge.

4 Results and discussions

4.1 Piezoresistor shape

Fig.5 Cross-sectional view of geometry model of piezoresistive
pressure sensor
nonlinearity of pressure sensors at room temperature are
analyzed, including the shape, placement, dimension, and
connection methods to metal lines. Firstly, various
piezoresistors with different shapes are designed including
Line-shape, U-shape, and W-shape, as shown in Fig. 6.
Table 2 summarizes the geometric parameters of these
piezoresistors. All of the piezoresistors are set as 1 kX and
platinum is used as the bent part of piezoresistor so that it
does not contribute to the piezoresistive effect. Then the
effects of the piezoresistor placement and piezoresistor
dimension on the output characteristics are analyzed to
make full use of the high-stress regions on the diaphragm.
As shown in Fig. 6a, x_offset is the distance between the
two transverse piezoresistors (R2 and R4) and the dia-
phragm edge. And y_offset is the distance between the two
longitudinal piezoresistors (R1 and R3) and the diaphragm
edge. Negative values represent that the piezoresistors are
located inside the diaphragm edge. Finally, the piezore-
sistors need to be connected with each other using metal
lines to form the Wheatstone bridge in the actual
The influence of SiC piezoresistors with different shapes on
the output characteristics of the pressure sensor was
investigated. Figure 7 shows the comparisons of output
voltage and nonlinearity between various models. It is
indicated that Model 1 and Model 3 give the worst and best
sensitivity, 2.37 mV/V/MPa and 2.74 mV/V/MPa, respec-
tively. And Model 2 and Model 4 give the least and largest
nonlinearity, 0.332% and 0.381%, respectively. These
results can be supported by the resistance variations of
piezoresistors with different shapes, as illustrated in Fig. 8.
The transverse piezoresistors increase in resistance values
while the longitudinal piezoresistors decrease in resistance
values. Except for W-shape transverse piezoresistor, the
piezoresistors have a larger change in resistance as the
number of turns increases, resulting in an increase in the
sensitivity of the sensor. And a decrease in the sensitivity
of Model 4 is due to that the distribution area of W-shape
transverse piezoresistors in the high-stress region is smaller
than that of the piezoresistors with U-shape. The overall
width of W-shape transverse piezoresistors is so large that
it has extended to the low stress areas. Furthermore, with

Table 2 Geometric parameters

Shape Turns Length [lm] Spacing [lm] Width [lm] Thickness [lm]
of piezoresistors with different
shapes Line-shape 0 220 – 16 2
U-shape 1 110 10 16 2
W-shape 3 55 10 16 2

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Microsystem Technologies

the increase of the difference in the resistance variations

between the transverse and longitudinal piezoresistors, the
nonlinearity of pressure sensor is increased, which is con-
sistent with the theoretical analysis in Sect. 3.1. To illus-
trate, the largest nonlinearity is given by Model 4 because
of the distinct difference in resistance variations. Overall, it
can be observed that the suitable design of the piezoresistor
shape is an effective method to optimize the performance
of the pressure sensor.

4.2 Placement and dimension of piezoresistors

Model 2 and Model 4 are chosen to illustrate the influence

of the SiC piezoresistor placement on the performance of
pressure sensors. The sensitivity and nonlinearity variation
with the offset are shown in Fig. 9. It is found that the
piezoresistors can be placed inside the diaphragm edge and
even slightly outside the diaphragm edge to achieve better
output performance. Just as the simulation results in
Sect. 2.2, there are high-stress regions within a certain area
outside the diaphragm in the bottom-fixed structure. It is
Fig. 6 Various piezoresistors with different shapes
beneficial for obtaining high sensitivity and less

Fig. 7 Comparisons of output 80 0.6

voltage and nonlinearity Model 1 Model 1
between various models Model 2 Model 2
Model 3 Model 3
Output voltage (mV)

60
Model 4
Nonlinearity (%)

Model 4 0.4

40

0.2
20

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Pressure (MPa) Pressure (MPa)
(a) (b)

Fig. 8 Resistance variations for 0 0.03

piezoresistors with different W-shape W-shape
shapes U-shape U-shape
-0.01 Line-shape
0.02
ΔRt /R
ΔRl /R

-0.02

0.01
-0.03

-0.04 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Pressure (MPa) Pressure (MPa)
(a) (b)

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 Microsystem Technologies

Fig. 9 Sensitivity and

nonlinearity of a, b Model 2 and
c, d Model 4 with different
piezoresistor placement

nonlinearity to make full use of the high-stress regions to
place the piezoresistors.
Subsequently, to analyze the effect of SiC piezoresistor
dimensions on output performance in Model 2, the ratio of
the length to the width is constant to ensure that the
resistance value remains unchanged. As shown in Table 3,
the dimension of transverse piezoresistors remains
unchanged. The sensitivity and nonlinearity decrease
obviously with the increase in the dimension of the lon-
gitudinal piezoresistors. The results can be explained by the
resistance variations of piezoresistors at 10 MPa, as illus-
trated in Fig. 10a. It can be seen that the change in resis-
tance of transverse piezoresistors remains constant and the
change in resistance of longitudinal piezoresistors decrea-
ses gradually with the increasing dimension, resulting in
reduced sensitivity. Meanwhile, the resistance variations of
the transverse and longitudinal piezoresistors become more
similar, which causes better linearity. The above results are
consistent with the theoretical analysis in Sect. 3.1.
Similarly, as shown in Table 4, with the increase in the
dimension of the transverse piezoresistors, the increased
sensitivity is attributed to the larger change in resistance
illustrated in Fig. 10b. These conclusions indicate that it is
necessary for achieving the sensitivity improvement and
nonlinearity reduction to appropriately increase the
dimension of the transverse piezoresistors on the basis of
the fabrication process and principle design. Also, the
dimension of the longitudinal piezoresistors should be
chosen to obtain the tradeoff between sensitivity and
nonlinearity.
4.3 Connection methods of piezoresistors
and metal lines
Figure 11a shows the classical structure of SiC piezore-
sistors as discussed above. In the actual fabrication process,
piezoresistors are connected with each other using metal
lines. The diaphragm deformation causes the metal-on-SiC

Table 3 Output performance of

Case Length[lm] 9 Width[lm] 9 Turns Sensitivity [mV/V/MPa] Nonlinearity [%]
longitudinal piezoresistors with
different dimensions Longitudinal Transverse

1 27.5 9 4 9 2 110 9 16 9 2 2.770 0.445

2 55 9 8 9 2 2.718 0.391
3 72.5 9 12 9 2 2.630 0.356
4 110 9 16 9 2 2.535 0.332
5 137.5 9 20 9 2 2.446 0.314
6 165 9 24 9 2 2.366 0.302

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Microsystem Technologies

0.04 0.04
Transverse longitudinal Transverse Longitudinal

R/R)
R/R)
0.02 0.02

Resistance variation (
Resistance variation (

0 0

-0.02 -0.02

-0.04 -0.04
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 5 Case 6 Case 7 Case 8 Case 9 Case 10 Case 11 Case 12

(a) (b)

Fig. 10 Resistance variations of piezoresistors at pressure of 10 MPa: a longitudinal piezoresistors with different dimensions, b transverse
piezoresistors with different dimensions

Table 4 Output performance of

Case Length[lm] 9 Width[lm] 9 Turns Sensitivity [mV/V/MPa] Nonlinearity [%]
transverse piezoresistors with
different dimensions Longitudinal Transverse

7 110 9 16 9 2 27.5 9 4 9 2 2.054 0.393

8 55 9 8 9 2 2.272 0.385
9 72.5 9 12 9 2 2.449 0.355
10 110 9 16 9 2 2.535 0.332
11 137.5 9 20 9 2 2.609 0.323
12 165 9 24 9 2 2.618 0.317

contacts on the diaphragm to be subjected to repeated

Fig. 11 Various piezoresistors structures: a classical structure,
b novel structure, c composition of longitudinal and transverse
piezoresistors in the novel structure
strains, which is not conducive to the stability and relia-
bility of pressure sensor, especially in high-temperature
environments. To keep metal lines outside the diaphragm
edge, a novel structure of the piezoresistors is designed in
Fig. 11b, which is composed of the classical structure
(Rl = Rt = 1 kX) in Fig. 11a and other SiC connection
regions. Under the applied pressure, the resistance of lon-
gitudinal and transverse piezoresistors in the novel struc-
ture according to Fig. 11c are respectively expressed as
RL ¼ Rl þ Rp þ 2Rs þ DRl þ DRp þ DRs ð19Þ
RT ¼ Rt þ Rp þ 2Rs þ DRt þ DRp þ DRs ð20Þ
where D is resistance variation of each part in Fig. 11c,
and subscripts L/l and T/t are respectively longitudinal and
the transverse. To achieve higher sensitivity and lower
nonlinearity, the suitable dimension and position of the
connection regions are optimized and determined through
simulation analysis. And each of the piezoresistors is
identified as 2.5 kX in the novel structure. Figure 12 shows
the performance comparisons between pressure sensors
with different piezoresistor structures. It is found that the
output voltage and nonlinearity of the novel structure
decreased respectively by 35% and 14% compared with the

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Fig. 12 Comparisons of output 80 0.5

voltage and nonlinearity for Classical structure Classical structure
various piezoresistorstructures Novel structure Novel structure
0.4
60

Output voltage (mV)

Nonlinearity (%)
0.3
40
0.2

20
0.1

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Pressure (MPa) Pressure (MPa)
(a) (b)

(a) (b)

Fig. 13 Resistance variations of the piezoresistors in a novel structure and b classical structure

classical structure. In the novel structure, the significant 5 Conclusions

increase in the resistance value of the piezoresistors is
attributed to the introduction of additional SiC connection
regions (Rp and Rs). And the piezoresistive effect of the
additional SiC regions (DRp and DRs) makes less contri-
bution to the resistance variations of piezoresistors. Hence,
the decrease in the resistance variations in Fig. 13a causes
the output voltage of pressure sensors to decrease. Fur-
thermore, as shown in Fig. 13b, the difference in resistance
variations between longitudinal and transverse piezoresis-
tors in the classical structure is more significant than that in
the novel structure, resulting in the larger nonlinearity. At
the cost of a certain output sensitivity, the novel piezore-
sistor structure is beneficial to realize the high-performance
SiC piezoresistive pressure sensor, which not only reduces
the possible drift caused by the local stress under
mechanical or thermal loadings but also avoids the contact
reliability problem after a long use period.
This paper focuses on fundamental research on the struc-
tural design of SiC piezoresistive pressure sensor to accu-
rately obtain optimal output characteristics. The analysis of
the bottom-fixed structure indicated that there are high-
stress regions within a certain area outside the diaphragm
and it is beneficial for improving the output characteristics
of pressure sensors to place the piezoresistors partially in
this regions. Furthermore, by determining the suitable pa-
rameters of SiC piezoreistors, including the shape, place-
ment, dimension, and connection methods with metal lines,
it can achieve larger resistance variations in both longitu-
dinal and transverse piezoresistors and less difference
between them. The above results are of great guiding sig-
nificance to the structural design and performance opti-
mization of SiC piezoresistive pressure sensor.

123
Microsystem Technologies
Funding This research was funded by National Key R & D Program
of China, grant number 2018YFB2002701.
Data availability The authors declare that the data and material in the
manuscript will be available to any scientist wishing to use them for
non-commercial purposes.
Code availability Not applicable.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
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