An electret microphone has been implemented into a printed circuit board. D
ue to novel construction the printed circuit board serves as the microphone
backplate. Furthermore, other features of printed circuit beard manufactur
ing technology are applied to minimize the number of components of the micr
ophone. This results in a microphone that can be manufactured with the asse
mbly of other electronic components during the manufacturing process. As a
result a complete manufacturing process has been developed. To analyze the
manufacturing process and the acoustical performance of the so-called PCB-m
icrophone, the acoustics have been modeled, and backplate surface roughness
, air gap thickness, electret charge, and overall sensitivity have been mea
sured from prototypes. (C) 2000 Acoustical Society of America.