Influence of air masses on microphone vibration sensitivity

A study is presented of the primary design parameters that influence the vibration sensitivity of a microphone. The sensitivity to vibration is generally determined by the mass of the pressure-sensing diaphragm along with the mass of air that moves with it. The sound-sensing performance is improved as the pressure-sensing diaphragm is made thinner, but for a thin enough diaphragm, the moving air mass is not negligible relative to that of the diaphragm itself. In the present study, we develop a simple duct-acoustic model to account for the effect of the co-vibrating air. It is shown that an idealized massless, thin microphone diaphragm will still produce unwanted vibration signal due to acceleration of the air masses within the microphone. For a small microphone, the predicted pressure related acceleration sensitivity is found to be a simple function of the mass per unit area of the air inside of the microphone package. The acceleration sensitivity predicted using a finite element model of a one micrometer thick clamped flexible silicon diaphragm agrees with that predicted by the simple duct model. Measured and predicted acceleration sensitivities are compared for several MEMS and sub-miniature electret microphones of different back volume lengths . It is found that the primary design parameter determining vibration sensitivity for these microphones is the effective length of the column of air inside the microphone’s packaging. Microphones that have longer air-filled volumes had greater pressure related acceleration sensitivity.

Customized sound mitigation with micro-perforated panels

Micro-perforated panels in combination with an air-tight back volume constitute the micro-perforated absorber (MPA), an alternative means in the category of sound absorbing (meta)materials. In contrast to the conventional porous and fibrous materials, the MPA does not mitigate sound in broad frequency range, but rather has to be customized to a specific noise frequency range. In this contribution, we demonstrate the simulation framework based a genetically fitted equivalent fluid model. Application examples show the advantages and disadvantages of using MPAs in room acoustic scenarios as well as with a background mean flow in ducts. The investigations found that the MPA's effectiveness strongly depends on the sound field characteristic. The MPP's surface roughness and back volume composition in-part significantly influence the efficiency of an adjacent turbo-machine.

Acoustically Coupled Microphone Arrays

An analysis is presented of the performance benefits that can be achieved by introducing acoustic coupling between the diaphragms in an array of miniature microphones. The introduction of this coupling is analogous to the principles employed in the ears of small animals that are able to localize sound sources. Measured results are shown, which indicate a dramatic improvement in acoustic sensitivity, and noise performance can be achieved by packaging a pair of small microphones so that their diaphragms share a common back volume of air. This is also shown to reduce the adverse effects on directional response of mismatches in the mechanical properties of the microphones.

A MEMS Microphone Using Repulsive Force Sensors

We present a MEMS microphone that converts the mechanical motion of a diaphragm, generated by acoustic waves, to an electrical output voltage by capacitive fingers. The sensitivity of a microphone is one of the most important properties of its design. The sensitivity is proportional to the applied bias voltage. However, it is limited by the pull-in voltage, which causes the parallel plates to collapse and prevents the device from functioning properly. The presented MEMS microphone is biased by repulsive force instead of attractive force to avoid pull-in instability. A unit module of the repulsive force sensor consists of a grounded moving finger directly above a grounded fixed finger placed between two horizontally seperated voltage fixed fingers. The moving finger experiences an asymmetric electrostatic field that generates repulsive force that pushes it away from the substrate. Because of the repulsive nature of the force, the applied voltage can be increased for better sensitivity without the risk of pull-in failure. To date, the repulsive force has been used to engage a MEMS actuator such as a micro-mirror, but we now apply it for a capacitive sensor. Using the repulsive force can revolutionize capacitive sensors in many applications because they will achieve better sensitivity. Our simulations show that the repulsive force allows us to improve the sensitivity by increasing the bias voltage. The applied voltage and the back volume of a standard microphone have stiffening effects that significantly reduce its sensitivity. We find that proper design of the back volume and capacitive fingers yield promising results without pull-in instability.

THEORETICAL EVALUATION OF LOUDSPEAKER FOR A 10 WATTS COOLING POWER THERMOACOUSTIC REFRIGERATOR

This paper presents a design of moving coil loudspeaker for a 10 W cooling power thermoacoustic refrigerator. An electrical model is presented which simulates the behavior of the loudspeaker. The gas spring system for matching the frequency of the commercially available loudspeaker with the frequency of the acoustic resonator tube for maximizing electro-acoustical efficiency of the loudspeaker is discussed. The optimum back volume for the gas spring system is found to be 59.7 cc, which is about 1.9% of the total resonator volume when the loudspeaker frequency and the acoustic resonator frequency is made equal at 400 Hz with a moving mass of 20 g. The effect of force factor Bl on loudspeaker performance is discussed. Analysis results shows that for better performance of a refrigerator, the loudspeaker should be chosen to have a large force factor and small values for electrical and mechanical resistances. The refrigerator system is tested with DeltaEC software and its results are in good agreement with an electrical model results.

A Miniature Silicon Condenser Microphone Improved with a Flexure Hinge Diaphragm and a Large Back Volume

We have developed a miniature silicon condenser microphone improved with a spring supported hinge diaphragm and a large back volume, which is designed in order to increase sensitivity of microphones. MEMS Technology has been successfully applied to miniature silicon capacitive microphones, and we fabricated the smallest condenser silicon microphone in the presented reports. We used the finite-element analysis (FEA) to evaluate mechanical and acoustic performances of the condenser microphone with a flexure hinge diaphragm. From the simulation results, we confirmed that the sensitivity of a flexure hinge diaphragm can be improved about 285 times higher than a flat diaphragm. The first and second modes occurred at 15,637Hz and 24,387Hz, respectively. The areas of the miniature condenser microphones with a hinge diaphragm are 1.5 mm × 1.5 mm. We measured the impedance characteristics and sensitivities of the fabricated condenser microphones. The sensitivities of microphones are around 12.87 μV/Pa (-60 dB ref. 12.5 mV/Pa) at 1 kHz under a low bias voltage of 1 V, and the frequency response is flat up to 13 kHz.