Design and Characterization of Acoustic Particle Velocity Sensors Fabricated with a Commercial Post-CMOS MEMS Process

This paper shows a thermal sensor capable of detecting the component of the acoustic particle velocity along one axis. The main novelty with respect to previous work is the use of a commercially available post-CMOS micromachining process for the whole fabrication flow, demonstrating the feasibility of a low-cost device. Another novel aspect of this work is the use of a simulation approach allowing effective optimization of the sensing structure layouts. The frequency response and directivity of the sensors have been measured and the results are discussed.