CMOS fully digital integrated pressure sensors

Most commercially available silicon pressure transducers are based on a Wheatstone bridge configuration and given an analogue output signal. These devices are generally very sensitive to noise and require complicated circuits (by using passive components) for temperature and non-linearity compensation. This limits the transducer accuracy and increases the calibration cost. To overcome these problems, a new generation of pressure transducers with digital output, based on MOSFET ring oscillators, has been developed. A fully digital integrated pressure sensor and data-acquisition procedures will be presented.