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Review
. 2020 May 8;11(5):484.
doi: 10.3390/mi11050484.

A Review of MEMS Capacitive Microphones

Siti Aisyah Zawawi  1   2 , Azrul Azlan Hamzah  1 , Burhanuddin Yeop Majlis  1 , Faisal Mohd-Yasin  3
Affiliations
Review

A Review of MEMS Capacitive Microphones

Siti Aisyah Zawawi et al. Micromachines (Basel). .

Abstract

This review collates around 100 papers that developed micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) capacitive microphones. As far as we know, this is the first comprehensive archive from academia on this versatile device from 1989 to 2019. These works are tabulated in term of intended application, fabrication method, material, dimension, and performances. This is followed by discussions on diaphragm, backplate and chamber, and performance parameters. This review is beneficial for those who are interested with the evolutions of this acoustic sensor.

Keywords: acoustic sensor; capacitive microphone; condenser microphone; evolution; micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Basic structure of a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) capacitive microphone.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a,b) The schematic and top view of fabricated flat diaphragm, respectively, from Goto et al. [82]. (c,d) show the schematic and SEM image of corrugated diaphragm from Chen et al. [66].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Iguchi et al. [83] systematically etched 10 µm × 10 µm2 acoustic holes on 2 × 2 mm2 Si (100) backplate.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Ko et al. [77] introduced a “stopper” that is attached to the backplate. In the event that the diaphragm vibrates at large amplitude, the stopper prevents it from touching the backplate.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. Loeppert P.V., Lee S.B. A commercialized MEMS microphone for high-volume consumer electronics. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 2004;116:2510. doi: 10.1121/1.4785015. - DOI
    1. Mallik S., Chowdhury D., Chattopadhyay M. Development and performance analysis of a low-cost MEMS microphone-based hearing aid with three different audio amplifiers. Innov. Syst. Softw. Eng. 2019;15:17–25. doi: 10.1007/s11334-019-00325-7. - DOI
    1. Zargarpour N., Zarifi M.H. A piezoelectric micro-electromechanical microphone for implantable hearing aid applications. Microsyst. Technol. 2015;21:893–902. doi: 10.1007/s00542-014-2134-7. - DOI
    1. Marek J. MEMS for automotive and consumer electronics; Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference—(ISSCC); San Francisco, CA, USA. 7–11 February 2010; Piscataway, NJ, USA: IEEE; 2010.