Yang Tzu-Sen, Chiou Jin-Chern
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Chiao-Tung University, 1001 Ta Hseuh Rd., Hsinchu City 30010, Taiwan.
Sensors (Basel). 2020 Sep 19;20(18):5367. doi: 10.3390/s20185367.
Low power consumption is one of the critical factors for successful Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In such applications, gas sensors have become a main source of power consumption because energy conversion efficiency of the microheater is relative over a wide range of operating temperatures. To improve the energy-conversion efficiency of gas-sensor microheaters, this paper proposes integrated switch-mode DC-to-DC power converter technology which we compare with traditional driving methods such as pulse-width modulation and the linear mode. The results indicate that energy conversion efficiency with this proposed method remains over 90% from 150 °C to 400 °C when using a 3.0, 4.2 and 5.0 V power supply. Energy-conversion efficiency increases by 1-74% compared with results obtained using the traditional driving methods, and the sensing film still detects alcohol and toluene at 200 °C and 280 °C, respectively, with high energy conversion efficiency. These results show that the proposed method is useful and should be further developed to drive gas-sensor microheaters, and then integrated into the circuits of the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor micro electro mechanical systems (CMOS-MEMS).
低功耗是成功实现物联网（IoT）应用的关键因素之一。在这类应用中，气体传感器已成为主要的功耗源，因为微加热器在很宽的工作温度范围内能量转换效率相对较低。为提高气体传感器微加热器的能量转换效率，本文提出了集成开关模式直流-直流电源转换器技术，并将其与诸如脉宽调制和线性模式等传统驱动方法进行比较。结果表明，当使用3.0V、4.2V和5.0V电源时，该方法在150℃至400℃范围内的能量转换效率保持在90%以上。与使用传统驱动方法获得的结果相比，能量转换效率提高了1%至74%，并且传感膜在200℃和280℃时仍能分别以高能量转换效率检测酒精和甲苯。这些结果表明，所提出的方法是有用的，应进一步开发以驱动气体传感器微加热器，然后集成到互补金属氧化物半导体微机电系统（CMOS-MEMS）的电路中。
