Displacement Study of Different Type of Membrane in Application of MEMS Microphone using

COMSOL Multiphysics

Abstract

Introduction

The advancement of sensor has achieved into Microelectro-Mechanical System (MEMS) era, which the
size of sensor is just several microns. The advantage of this tiny dimension of sensor is including less
power, light-weight, easy compatibility with other devices, low cost to produce. MEMS sensor received
mechanical disturbance such as, pressure, sound, heat and then decode it into electrical signal. However,
MEMS actuator usually generates mechanical output that had been converted from electrical signal.

One of the MEMS sensors being researched is MEMS microphone. MEMS microphone has been
researched for several decade and fabricated for market. MEMS microphone can be found in mobile
phone, computer, hearing aid and surveillance. Even though the performance of MEMS microphone is not
still as best as professional microphone, but its tiny size is much important.

MEMS microphone use membrane as a sensor to detect sound pressure and convert it into electrical
signal. Sound is transferred through air in longitudinal form and hit the membrane. Membrane will
deform and vibrate mimicking the sound frequency it received. The deformation of membrane will be
detected by several approaches, such as using piezoresistive of capacitive membrane.

The length of deformation of membrane is considered by mechanical properties of membrane and also
design of membrane. Mechanical properties that always become consideration are young modulus and
poisson ratio. While the design that is used for membrane is circle, rectangle, square, corrugated, and
perforated. The working range of membrane should be able cover sound pressure which is from 0 db until
120 dB (equal to 20 uPa to 20 Pa).

This paper studies about displacement of membrane that is affected by sound pressure using COMSOL
Multiphysics simulation.

Theory

Fe
P0=Patm + 2
a

4 2 2 2 2
P0 a r r
w (r)= (1 2 ) =w pk (1 2 )
64 D a a
 3
Et
D= 2
12(1v )

P0 a 4
w pk =
64 D

2 r 2 ( r ) dr P 0 a 4 w pk
0
w avg= = =
a2 192 D 3

Design of membranes

Result
Conclusion