A new pressure sensor measured by heat transfer

This paper presents a newly developed pressure sensor. The principle of its pressure measurement is based on heat transfer from a heat source fabricated on a sensor element to a metal diaphragm, to which pressure is applied. The sensor element is fabricated by micromachining techniques in which four mask process steps are used that are compatible with IC processing. The measurement results show a good linearity (3.5 %FS) and quick response (100 Hz) due to the small thermal capacity of the sensor element.