Silicon Designs, Inc., a global industry leader in the design and manufacture of highly rugged industrial-grade MEMS capacitive accelerometer chips and modules, has announced the recent introduction of a ±5 g model to its 2011 industry best-selling 2210 series.

Designed to support a variety of lower frequency aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, industrial, and general test and measurement requirements, the low-noise, single-axis model 2210-005 accelerometer module features the incorporation of high-quality MEMS capacitive sensing elements, all manufactured in the USA at Silicon Designs Seattle-based fabrication facility. Sensing elements are packaged within a compact, lightweight anodized epoxy sealed aluminum housing, occupying a total footprint of just one square inch. The accelerometers feature a simple four-wire connection and internal voltage regulator to minimize supply voltage variation effects. Units are relatively insensitive to temperature changes with quick, easy self-calibration. They also feature high-drive, low-impedance buffering to support low-frequency acceleration measurement requirements from 0 (DC) to 400 Hz.

The Silicon Designs model 2210 accelerometer module produces two analog voltage outputs which vary with acceleration. Users have the choice of employing either single-ended or differential output, which doubles the sensitivity over single-ended output to 800 mV/g. The sensitive axis is perpendicular to the bottom of the package, with positive acceleration defined as a force pushing on the bottom of the package. The signal outputs are fully differential about a common mode voltage of approximately 2.5 volts. The output scale factor is independent from the supply voltage of +9 to +32 volts. At zero acceleration, the output differential voltage is nominally 0 volts DC; at ±full scale acceleration, the output differential voltage is ±4 volts DC.