Capacitive absolute pressure sensor with independent electrode and membrane sizes for improved fractional capacitance change

Unlike a traditional capacitive pressure sensor, which uses the entire deflectable diaphragm as the electrode, this paper proposes the use of reduced electrode area to increase the fractional capacitance change and reduce the device's sensitivity to package stresses. Therefore, in addition to the low temperature sensitivity inherent in capacitive sensing, the proposed pressure sensor helps relax signal conditioning requirements typically associated with capacitive sensor interface circuitry.