Thermal micropressure sensor for pressure monitoring in a minute package

A thermal micropressure sensor suitable for pressure measurements in the range from 7x10-3 to 1x105 Pa has been fabricated by forming a titanium (Ti) thin-film resistor on a floating nondoped silica glass membrane, with the sensing area being as small as 60 μmx60 μm. The sensor performance is raised by: (1) increasing the ratio of gaseous thermal conduction in the total thermal conduction by sensor structure design; (2) compensating the effect of ambient-temperature drift by using a reference resistor located close to the sensing element but directly on the silicon substrate; and (3) utilizing an optimized novel constant-bias Wheatstone bridge circuit. By choosing a proper bias voltage, which can be found by simple calculation, the circuit extracts information on gaseous thermal conduction from the directly measurable total heat loss of the heated sensing element. The sensor was enclosed in a metal package with a capacity of about 0.5 ml by projection welding and was successfully applied to monitoring the pressure in the minute space