a first terminal of the heater 406 and a second wire bond 410 coupled to a second terminal of the heater 406 in one embodiment the heater 406 integrated into the silicon mems cap 404 includes two cuts one of ordinary skill in the art readily recognizes that a plurality of cuts can be utilized and that would be within the spirit and scope of the present invention additionally the heater 406 resistance is maintained at a higher level than the other resistances along the current path so that enough power is dissipated across the heater 406 and external contacts and cables do not get hotter than the heater 406 the power dissipated by the heater 406 is i 2 u00d7 r if the heater 406 resistance is too small e g lt 1 ohm then heating circuitry could supply a current for joule heating rather than supplying a voltage fig5 illustrates a system 500 for controlling temperature of a mems sensor in accordance with a fifth embodiment the system 500 includes a cmos die 102 a mems cap 504 coupled to the cmos die 102 a heater 506 integrated into the mems cap 504 a first wire bond 508 coupled to a first terminal of the heater 506 and a second wire bond 510 coupled to a second terminal of the heater 506 in one embodiment the heater 506 comprises aluminum layers lithographically patterned on a top surface of the mems cap 504 by lithographically patterning the aluminum layers a resistive heater with desired resistance is attained in one.