Silicon monolithic microflow sensors: a review

Flow measurement is an essential requirement in medical, industrial, automotive and environmental applications, Thanks to the rapid development of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) micro-fabrication techniques, silicon-based microflow sensor chips used as the key component of microfluidic control systems have attracted particular attentions due to the miniaturized chip-size, high precision, low power consumption, rapid response and low-cost batch-fabrication capability. Up to present, many different types of silicon microflow sensors have been proposed and developed. This paper provides a review on recently completed works on design, fabrication and properties of the MEMS-based silicon monolithic microflow sensors. Some technical challenges and application outlooks are also discussed in the paper. (paper)