Testing of a single-polarity piezoresistive three-dimensional stress-sensing chip

A new piezoresistive stress-sensing rosette is developed to extract the components of the three-dimensional (3D) stress tensor using single-polarity (n-type) piezoresistors. This paper presents the testing of a micro-fabricated sensing chip utilizing the developed single-polarity rosette. The testing is conducted using a four-point bending of a chip-on-beam to induce five controlled stress components, which are analyzed both numerically and experimentally. Numerical analysis using finite element analysis is conducted to study the levels of the induced stress components at three rosette-sites and the levels of the stress field non-uniformities, and to simulate the extracted stress components from the sensing rosette. The experimental analysis applied tensile and compressive loads over three rosette-sites at different load increments. The experimentally extracted stress components show good linearity with the applied load and values close to the numerical model.