SBIR Phase I: High Performance Directional MEMS Microphones for Communication Devices

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将研究一种基于全新设计原理的新型MEMS传声器。通过摒弃已有100年历史的传统全尺寸麦克风以及最近商业化的MEMS麦克风，该项目将探索一种卓越的声学设计，从而大幅提高保真度和信噪比(与现有的MEMS麦克风相比，信噪比提高了20分贝)。此外，麦克风将具有固有的方向性响应，其好处是专注于扬声器或感兴趣的事件，同时拒绝环境背景噪音。这些特性使这一创新成为满足大容量消费通信设备制造商的新兴需求的理想选择，这些制造商正在寻找具有高性能和低制造成本的独特组合的声学传感创新。如果成功，这项拟议的创新将首次将高性能音频质量引入一套消费通信设备中。这项创新的主要客户重点是大容量消费通信设备制造商，他们的应用即将到来，需要大幅提高麦克风组件的性能。目前，MEMS麦克风的商业供应商都使用传统麦克风架构的变体，这种架构已被证明不能满足高性能应用，特别是那些需要高保真和方向性的应用。这项创新的其他市场和应用包括声学仪器、性能音频、军事和国防、情报收集、语音识别(例如。在膝上型计算机中)和助听器。解决助听器市场也将产生社会影响，因为患者对助听器设备的满意度目前非常低。这项创新还有望用于其他听力学应用，包括用于基于耳声原理的听力健康监测系统。基于这一创新的临床工具和仪器将有助于提高声学许多领域的科学和技术理解。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will investigate a novel MEMS based microphone based on entirely new design principles. By abandoning the traditional 100 year-old microphone architecture common to both full-scale microphones as well as recently commercialized MEMS microphones, this project will explore a vastly superior acoustical design that will result in substantial improvements in fidelity and SNR (20 dB SNR improvement over existing MEMS microphones). Furthermore, the microphone will have an inherently directional response with the benefit of focusing on a speaker or event of interest while rejecting ambient background noise. These attributes make this innovation ideal for addressing an emerging need of high volume consumer communication device manufactures that are looking for acoustic sensing innovations with the unique combination of high performance and low manufacturing cost. If successful the proposed innovation will enable, for the first time, the introduction of performance-audio quality into a suite of consumer communication devices. The primary customer focus for this innovation is high volume consumer communication device manufacturers with applications on their horizon that demand substantial improvements in microphone component performance. Presently, commercial suppliers of MEMS microphones all use variations of a traditional microphone architecture which has proven incapable of addressing high performance applications, in particular those that require high fidelity and directionality. Additional markets and applications for this innovation include acoustic instrumentation, performance audio, military and defense, intelligence gathering, speech recognition (ex. in laptop computers), and hearing aids. Addressing hearing aid markets will have a societal impact as well, as patient satisfaction with hearing aid devices is presently very low. The innovation is also expected to have other audiological applications including use in hearing health monitoring systems based on otoacoustic principles. Clinical tools and instruments based on this innovation will serve to enhance scientific and technological understanding in many fields of acoustics.