Silicon Designs, a designer and manufacturer of rugged industrial-grade MEMS capacitive accelerometer chips, has announced the introduction of its Model 2227-025. This is the first in a planned family of high-performance, MEMS accelerometer modules for inertial navigation and tilt applications (non-ITAR), such as UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and other unmanned systems.
The Model 2227-025 has both an industry standard form factor and pin compatibility with many of the quartz-based accelerometers currently used in these applications. This allows the Model 2227-025 to serve as both a lower-cost alternative and direct drop-in replacement for many industry quartz-based inertial navigation accelerometers.
The rugged design of the Model 2227-025 MEMS accelerometer module combines two patented, capacitive, silicon sense elements, together with a precision, custom CMOS integrated circuit, in a compact, low mass, hermetically sealed LCC package. These ±25 g modules are assembled on a high-temperature open printed circuit board (PCB) with a circuit that converts the differential output voltage of the MEMS accelerometer into a current directly proportional to the amount of applied acceleration. This design allows the Model 2227-025 to achieve the low-noise, high-stability, long-term repeatability and low power needed for many of today’s inertial navigation applications. Final testing is conducted on a temperature-tumble-system, thereby providing thermal calibration parameters that simplify accelerometer use with the customer’s own real-time temperature compensation and modeling software.
Two additional g-ranges, to be sold as the Model 2227-010 (±10 g) and Model 2227-050 (±50 g), respectively, are expected to follow soon.
