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This paper presents micro-Pirani vacuum gauges using low-resistivity monocrystal silicon for the heaters and the heat sinks. We designed a new Pirani gauge with an embedded Wheatstone bridge made by thick-silicon resistors that allows an improvement in resolution and sensitivity. With the optimized Wheatstone bridge structure, the temperature coefficient of the gauges pressure measure decreases from 2.5%/°C to 0.74%/°C, and the resolution was optimized from 0.071 to 0.008 Torr at 1 Torr. In addition, the gauges were packaged into non-hermetic cavities by wafer-level AlGe eutectic bonding to undergo the wafer-dicing process, with sensitivity improved from 1.65 to 17.1 V/Torr at 1 Torr.

This paper presents a wafer-level packaged MEMS (Micro-electromechanical Systems) Pirani gauge with surrounded heat sinks with improved characteristics during the low limit of the cavity vacuum. Different to the reported gauges in other papers, it has four heat sinks, and one of these is the cap of the wafer-level package. And it utilizes two heaters and two constant resistors to construct an Whetstone Bridge, two meander-shaped suspended silicon coils is set as the heaters and two isolated comb-shaped silicon structures as the dual-lateral heat sinks. In addition, the substrate and capped wafers are used as dual-vertical heat sinks. The gauge is finally realized with the volume 1.4mm×1.2mm×0.5mm using the CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor)-MEMS compatible process. The gauge was measured twice before and after wafer-level packaging. It denotes that with the introduction of the capped heat sink, the device bears a better sensitivity compared to the intermediate device before packaging. With a hole on the edge of the device, the gauge could be widely and flexibly used for the characterization of vacuum packaged MEMS devices.

As the costs of packaging and testing account for a substantial portion of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) devices, an effective and convenient characterization method is urgent to be investigated to lower the cost. In this paper, an electrical test method was utilized, and the test key used for a four-probe current-voltage test was designed to monitor the quality of the AuSn eutectic bonding. The electrical test can directly detect whether or not voids existed in the bonding layer. The difference in alloy state, for example, the existence of the (Au, Ni) 3Sn2 phase confirmed by the scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy test, can also be reflected by resistivity variation. The electrical test can be implemented automatically and conveniently unlike other characterization methods. Therefore, it is suitable to be applied in quality inspection in industrial production.