Patent ID: 8487508
Filing Date: 2013-07-16
Classification: G01K

Abstract:
1. A micro-electro-mechanical digital sensing system comprising: a plurality of sensing elements on a substrate, each sensing element comprising a cantilevered bimorph beam and at least one set of open contacts configured for non-latching contact-mode operation with the bimorph beam, the bimorph beam of each sensing element being responsive to changes in an environmental condition so as to deflect toward and away from the open contacts thereof in response to the changes in the environmental condition, the bimorph beams being configured to contact and close their respective open contacts at different levels of the environmental condition; and an integrated circuitry interfacing with the sensing elements so that digital outputs of the sensing elements are processed to generate a system output of the sensing system, wherein the integrated circuitry communicates with a subset of the sensing elements that are responsive to a targeted range of the different levels of the environmental condition so that each of the sensing elements of the subset individually produces a digital output when the bimorph beam thereof contacts and closes the open contacts thereof, the digital outputs of only the subset of sensing elements are processed by the integrated circuitry to generate the system output of the sensing system, other of the sensing elements that are not part of the subset of sensing elements are responsive to the different levels of the environmental condition outside the targeted range of the different levels of the environmental condition to which the subset of sensing elements are responsive, and contact and closing of the open contacts of the other of the sensing elements by the bimorph beams thereof at the different levels of the environmental condition outside the targeted range are ignored by the integrated circuitry when generating the system output.