Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

ScienceDirect
Procedia Engineering 120 (2015) 63 66

EUROSENSORS 2015

Low Power Closed-Loop Driving Circuit for Piezoelectric

Microscanners based on Tuneable Capacitive Position Sensors
S. Rombacha*, M. Marxa, S. Gu-Stoppelc, Y. Manolia,b
a

Fritz Huettinger Chair of Microelectronics, Department of Microsystems Engineering - IMTEK, University of Freiburg, Georges-Koehler-Allee
102, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
b
Hahn-Schickard Institute of Micromachining and Information Technology, Wilhelm-Schickard-Str. 10, 78052 Villingen-Schwenningen,
Germany
c
Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology, Fraunhoferstr. 1, 25524 Itzehoe, Germany

Abstract
This paper presents an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for driving piezoelectric (PZT) resonant actuated
microscanners with low power consumption based on embedded capacitive position sensors. The ASIC utilizes the advantages of
low driving voltages offered by the PZT actuation mechanism and the well-established low power concepts for capacitive closedloop driving circuits. For closed-loop operation of the displacement of the mirror-plate a pair of capacitances is embedded within
the microscanner. The position signal of the mirror-plate is scalable. Measurement results of the system are presented, using the
driving ASIC and a MEMS micro-mirror, demonstrating the competitiveness of the concept.
2015
Published
by Elsevier
Ltd. This
is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license

2015The
TheAuthors.
Authors.
Published
by Elsevier
Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review
under
responsibility
of
the
organizing
committee
of EUROSENSORS
2015.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee
of EUROSENSORS
2015

Keywords: Driving-ASIC; Low Power; Position sensors; Piezoelectric; Micro-Mirror; MEMS

1. Introduction
In the last decade MEMS (Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems) micro-mirrors, which are used for the modulation
of light in microscanner systems, are entering various application fields. They are deployed in head-up displays in
the automotive industry or in optical-coherence-tomography for medical applications [1]. Additionally, in the
consumer industry the interest is growing rapidly. Here, microscanners are deployed for the use in portable micro-

* Stefan Rombach. Tel.: +49 7612037595; fax: +49 761 203 67544.
E-mail address: Stefan.rombach@imtek.de

1877-7058 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of EUROSENSORS 2015

doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2015.08.566

64

S. Rombach et al. / Procedia Engineering 120 (2015) 63 66

projector systems with small dimensions [2]. Such portable devices are mostly powered by battery and for a long
operation time of the microscanner system low power consumption is required. Mainly, four principles of actuation
are employed for the operation of microscanners [3]. The electrostatic principle is well known and established but
requires driving voltages of up to 100V [4]. The on-chip generation of these high voltages requires special
fabrication processes and the circuit complexity is high which in turn increases the power consumption.
Electromagnetic actuation is limited if high compactness and low power consumption is desired. For the generation
of high forces high magnetic fields are required [5]. High conduction currents inside a coil dissipate an enormous
amount of energy and the assembly of strong magnets increases the package size to a critical value for portable
devices. Thermal actuation generates large deflections of the mirror plate while the driving voltages are low [6], but
the actuation frequencies are limited by the thermal response time. In contrast to aforementioned principles the
piezoelectric principle overcomes several disadvantages. Piezoelectric actuation offers driving voltages which are
smaller (<10V) compared to the electro-static [7]. In contrast to electro-magnetic actuation, bulky magnets and high
currents in coils are not necessary for the generation of high forces. Compared to thermal actuation higher actuation
frequencies are realizable. Therefore, PZT actuated microscanners are suitable for the design of microscanner
systems with small package size and lower power consumption.
2. Fully Differential Capacitive Position Sensors for PZT Microscanners
Microscanners are operated in resonant or quasi-static mode for the modulation of light. In this work only the
resonant mode is examined. For the design of high performance microscanner systems and closed-loop operation
position sensors are necessary. These sensors provide a signal which depends on the position of the micro-mirror
plate. The detected signal is used for the extraction of the frequency and amplitude of the deflected mirror plate.
Based on the output signal of these sensors the readout electronic is enabled to track the resonance frequency with a
phase locked loop (PLL) [8]. Additionally the amplitude of the oscillation is controlled by amplitude gain control
(AGC). The PZT microscanner used in this work do not offer position sensors to deploy them in closed-loop
readout.

Fig. 1. (a) Embedded capacitive position sensors. (b) Charge integrator for position sensor readout.

Thus, in this work capacitive position sensors are embedded into the cavity of the PZT microscanner as shown in
Fig.1 a) to overcome this issue. These sensors generate a fully differential output signal which is applicable for
closed-loop operation according to (1).

Cs

A H0 Hr
d 0 r 'd

d0

C 0
d 0 r 'd

(1)

Simple metalized copper plates on the top side of the carrier substrate (PCB) form the differential sensing
capacitances Cs1 and Cs2 of the position sensors. Without increasing the package size of the microscanner the
capacitive position sensors are embedded into the cavity of the micro-mirrors. This is achieved by milling a trench
into the carrier PCB with a depth of 300 m. This depth is acceptable for large scan angles and signal detection
amplitudes. The mirror plate is used as counter electrode for Cs1 and Cs2. The polysilicon substrate of the mirror is

S. Rombach et al. / Procedia Engineering 120 (2015) 63 66

biased by a voltage Vbias of 3 V. This delivers the voltage gain of the position sensors and the requirements for the
readout electronic are relaxed with respect to signal amplification and noise limitation.
3. Closed-Loop Driving ASIC for MEMS Mirror

Fig. 2. System level overview of the driving ASIC and the connected micro-mirror, which is previously described in [7].

The low power driving ASIC contains a PLL to track the frequency of the microscanner and an amplitude gain
control to regulate the amplitude of the mirror-plate deflection over ambient variations like temperature drifts as
shown in Figure 2. The input signal for the AGC and PLL is provided by the charge integrator C/V, which is
connected to the position sensing capacitances Cs1 and Cs2, and converts the capacitance change into a voltage Vsens.
The resonance frequency is extracted out of Vsens using the PLL and a higher multiply of fr is generated which can
be used as digital clock (fHS) for e.g. the control of a video-ASIC for display applications. Furthermore a 90 phase
shifted clock is provided for the application of the rectangular driving voltage VDrive. Consequently, the loop is
closed and the oscillation frequency and amplitude of the micro-mirror is kept constant by the driving ASIC.
Additionally, the PLL can be limited within a digitally tunable range to prevent that the ASIC is locking to parasitic
modes of the mirror.
4. Closed-Loop Measurements of ASIC and MEMS Mirror
Measured closed-loop signals of the ASIC are shown in Fig. 3. The voltage VDrive is at its maximum during
startup and regulated after the reference value of the C/V is reached.

Fig. 3. a) Measured startup process of the driving ASIC showing VDrive and Vsens. b) Spectrum of measured Vsens with 80dB signal peak during
closed-loop operation. The resonance frequency is detected after 5ms. The final amplitude of Vsens is reached after approximately 20ms.

65

66

S. Rombach et al. / Procedia Engineering 120 (2015) 63 66

The startup of the system is completed after 20ms when the Vsens has reached the final amplitude of approx. 1V.
The spectrum of Vsens is shown in Fig. 3 exhibiting a strong separation of the signal to the noise level at the
fr = 23.8 kHz. At higher frequencies parasitic crosstalk signals and inter-modulation products are visible in the
spectrum. These signals components are 40 dB lower than the signal peak and therefore do not compromise the
performance of the closed-loop system. The test of the closed-loop system functionality is finalized using a red laser
illuminating a single mirror. The setup for using two mirrors is shown in Fig. 4 a) and b). As a result a line and
rectangle are visible in Fig. 4 c) and Fig. 4 d) for the 1D-scanning and 2D-scanning.

Fig. 4. Setup of two single-axis micro-mirrors for the 2D scanning. a) Front-view angle. b) Side-view angle. c) 1D-scanning. d) 2D-scanning.

5. Conclusion
The presented driving ASIC for PZT actuated micro-mirrors together with the embedded tunable capacitive position
sensors achieves lower power consumption compared with other concepts according to Tab. 1. In addition a closedloop operation of the PZT microscanner is presented controlling the actuation frequency and amplitude of the mirror
plate. The scan angle of the microscanner shown in Fig. 4 could be further increased by optimizing the buffer-stage
of the driving ASIC with respect to higher actuation voltages. The combination of the low voltage PZT actuation
and capacitive closed-loop readout is beneficial, enabling the design of small-scale microscanners with very low
power consumption and high performance.
Table 1: Comparison of the power consumption and actuation frequency with other driving principles.
Parameter
Actuation Principle
Actuation Frequency / kHz
Current Dissipation / mA
Power Dissipation / mW

[4]
Electro- Static
>10kHz
50-100

[5]
Electro-Magnetic
>10kHz
131
50

[6]
Thermal
<1kHz
11

This Work
Piezo-Electric
>10kHz
0.26
0.86

References
[1] D. McCormick, W. Jung, Y.-C. Ahn, Z. Chen, N. Tien, A three dimensional real-time MEMS based optical biopsy system for in-vivo clinical
imaging, in: Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference, 2007. TRANSDUCERS 2007. International, 2007, pp. 203208.
[2] U. Hofmann, J. Janes, H.-J. Quenzer, High-q mems resonators for laser beam scanning displays, Micromachines 3 (2) (2012) 509528.
[3] S. Holmstrom, U. Baran, H. Urey, MEMS laser scanners: A review 23 (2) (2014) 259275.
[4] V. Milanovic, A. Kasturi, N. Siu, M. Radojicic, Y. Su, MEMSeye for optical 3D tracking and imaging applications, in: Solid-State Sensors,
Actuators and Microsystems Conference (TRANSDUCERS), 2011 16th International, 2011, pp. 18951898.
[5] C.-H. Ji, M. Choi, S.-C. Kim, K.-C. Song, J.-U. Bu, H.-J. Nam, Electromagnetic two-dimensional scanner using radial magnetic field, J.
Microelectromech. Syst., vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 989996, 2007.
[6] S. Pal, H. Xie, A curved multimorph based electrothermal micromirror with large scan range and low drive voltage, Sensors and Actuators A:
Physical 170 (1) (2011) 156163.
[7] S. Gu-Stoppel, J. Janes, H. Quenzer, U. Hofmann, W. Benecke, Two-dimensional scanning using two single-axis low-voltage pzt resonant
micromirrors, in: SPIE MOEMS-MEMS, International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2014, pp. 897706897706.
[8] S. Rombach, M. Maurer, D. Wendler, and Y. Manoli, Implementation of a modulated lowpass delta-sigma modulator for mems gyroscopes
with low-power consumption and low sampling frequency, in Eurosensors XXIX Procedia Engineering. Elsevier Ltd, September 2015.