• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.16 no.12 s.117
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• pp.1272-1278
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• 2006

This paper presents a novel MEMS condenser microphone with rigid backplate to enhance acoustic characteristics. The MEMS condenser microphone consists of membrane and backplate chips which are bonded together by gold-tin(Au/Sn) eutectic solder bonding. The membrane chip has $2.5mm{\times}2.5mm$, 0.5${\mu}m$ thick low stress silicon nitride membrane, $2mm{\times}2mm$ Au/Ni/Cr membrane electrode, and 3${\mu}m$ thick Au/Sn layer. The backplate chip has $2mm{\times}2mm$, 150${\mu}m$ thick single crystal silicon rigid backplate, $1.8mm{\times}1.8mm$ backplate electrode, and air gap, which is fabricated by bulk micromachining and silicon deep reactive ion etching. Slots and $50{\sim}60{\mu}m$ radius circular acoustic holes to reduce air damping are also formed in the backplate chip. The fabricated microphone sensitivity is 39.8 ${\mu}V/Pa$(-88 dB re. 1 V/Pa) at 1 kHz and 28 V polarization voltage. The microphone shows flat frequency response within 1 dB between 20 Hz and 5 kHz.