Design of spring-supported diaphragm capacitive MEMS microphone

Dr Mohamad developed a new microelectromechanical (MEMS) capacitive microphone which can be used in various consumer electronics such as smartphones and hearing aid devices. The millimeter size microphone uses a novel spring diaphragm structure and has been designed to achieve a high sensitivity with low noise operation. Analytical and numerical models were developed to optimise design parameters and performance. Samples of the microphones were successfully fabricated to verify feasibility. The proposed design has led to achieving better performance of a miniature microphone while reducing the production cost due to fewer fabrication masks being required and potentially lower rejection rate.