The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 30, 2011
Filed:
Oct. 02, 2006
Timothy Cummins, County Clare, IE;
Timothy Cummins, County Clare, IE;
Silicon Laboratories Inc., Austin, TX (US);
Abstract
A single chip wireless sensor () comprises a microcontroller () connected to a transmit/receive interface (), which is coupled to a wireless antenna () by an L-C matching circuit. The sensor () senses gas or humidity and temperature. The device () is an integrated chip manufactured in a single process in which both the electronics and sensor components are manufactured using standard CMOS processing techniques, applied to achieve both electronic and sensing components in an integrated process. A Low-K material () with an organic polymer component is spun onto the wafer to form a top layer incorporating also sensing electrodes (). This material is cured at 300° C., which is much lower than CVD temperatures. The polyimide when cured becomes thermoset, and the lower mass-to-volume ratio resulting in K, its dielectric constant, reducing to 2.9. The thermoset dielectric, while not regarded as porous in the conventional sense, has sufficient free space volume to admit enough gas or humidity for sensing.