Abstract
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Technology of Silicon Microphones
Portable and consumer electronics device (products that utilize a microphone
or microspeaker in its construction) manufacturers are continually attempting
to find ways to improve profitability and gain (or retain) market share. Two
common approaches are (a)reduce total cost of the cell phone unit or (b)
increase price through technology features that consumers are willing to pay a
premium.
These companies have done an excellent job of reducing the overall costs
associated with building their products, focusing on various areas,
including the following:
- Improving the supply chain through stronger supplier relations and more
supplier involvement.
- Reduction in the total number of components and negotiating lowest
component costs by leveraging volume.
- Improving manufacturing efficiencies by forcing standardization and
increasing automation (reducing manual assembly).
- Utilizing low cost manufacturing regions.
Despite these requirements, microphones and microspeakers have shown only
limited success in satisfying the needs of device producers.
The traditional electret condenser microphone, commonly referred to as ECM
(Electret Condenser Microphone) has been the standard microphone option
available to device designers. Manufacturers of portable devices and consumer
electronics have had no other option than the traditional ECM. ECMs have
provided customers with relatively low piece part cost, but fail to satisfy
users in the areas of ease-of assembly, lowest installed cost, and
advancements in value-added features. The industry needed a better solution.
Manufacturers have been forced to aggressively pursue cost reductions to
simply maintain profitability. Component suppliers in turn have been pushed to
the limits with regards to piece part cost reductions, but without sacrificing
performance and features. However, after year over year price concessions, and
flattening global unit demand for some devices such as mobile phones,
double-digit piece part price reductions can not be expected with the existing
components. Therefore, manufactures are forced to pursue other cost saving
measures.
Many portable and consumer electronics devices contains hundreds of sub
components, most of which are surface mounted directly to the primary printed
circuit board within the device. By utilizing high speed, automated
pick-and-place equipment, components can be placed and terminated to a circuit
board at rates greater than 39,000 parts per hour. For an electronic device
manufacturer, the actual cost of placing a single component utilizing this
equipment becomes negligible manufacturers want to maximize the number of
components that can be placed utilizing automated pick-and-place.
For those components that cannot be fed through the automated equipment,
manufacturers must utilize off-line, secondary assembly operations to place
the remaining components. Although there are only a handful of components that
fall into this category, there is still a strong need to minimize any off-line
component assembly. For this reason, companies have attempted to drive
suppliers to develop surface mountable components that can be implemented
directly into their high-speed assembly, without sacrificing performance.
Currently, there are only a handful of components that cannot be assembled in
this manner. Two of these components are the microphone and microspeaker. With
at least one microphone or microspeaker used in every electronic device
analyzed in this study, the need for a replacement to the traditional ECM is
increasing in importance.
The construction and design of the ECM prohibits it from being assembled with
standard high-speed surface mount equipment. The diaphragm and backplate
materials (typically Teflon or Mylar) cannot withstand the high temperatures
associated with a typical surface mount reflow process. Reflow temperatures
can run as high as 260 degrees Celsius for as long as 30 seconds, well in
excess of what these materials can handle without degradation of performance
or complete failure.
In addition, ECMs have a charged backplate (typically 200V-300V) that is
implanted at the manufacturer. If for any reason the charge is reduced or
removed, the dynamic response of the microphone quickly degrades. More often
than not, this is caused by excessive heat. This is why ECMs are not specified
over 85°ree;C and cannot be soldered to a printed circuit board through
automated surface mount processes.
For a high volume consumer microphone it is essential that a close tolerance
of the microphone sensitivity is achieved by the MEMS design. In order to
avoid the influence of film stress Knowles Acoustics, for example, decided to
pursue an approach with a so-called free-floating diaphragm. The microphone
diaphragm is supported, but not physically attached, by posts that follow a
circular pattern around the edge of the diaphragm. Thus, the diaphragm is
‘free-floating' within the MEMS structure. The thickness of the
diaphragm is only 1&mum, the diameter of the active 11V, these support posts
establish a gap between the diaphragm and the back-plate of 4 microns
resulting in an active capacity of 0.5pF.
One of the challenging issues of the silicon microphone is the packaging.
Besides size and cost constraints it is mandatory totake into account a high
reproducibility as well as batch fabrication processes. Pack continuously and
can handle the heat produced during the reflow soldering process if ttoucakkt
260°ree; for 30secs.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Introduction
- 1.1 Technology of Silicon Microphones
- 1.2 Advantages of Silicon Microphones
Chapter 2 - Microphone Market
Chapter 3 - Micro Speaker Markets
- 3.1 Introduction
- 3.2 Cellular Handset Audio Speakers
- 3.3 Consumer Audio Speakers
Chapter 4 - Microphone and Speaker Supplier Profiles
Chapter 5 - Headset Markets
- 5.1 The Contact Center/Office Market
- 5.2 Mobile Market/PC Headset Market
- 5.3 Bluetooth Headset Market
- 5.4 Aviation Headset Market
- 5.5 Headphones
Chapter 6 - End Application Markets
- 6.1 Answering Machines
- 6.2 Audio Conferencing
- 6.3 Automotive Telematics
- 6.4 Cellular Phones
- 6.5 CB Radios
- 6.6 Corded Phones
- 6.7 Cordless Phones
- 6.8 Digital Cameras
- 6.9 Fax Machines
- 6.11 Hearing Aids
- 6.12 Integrated Laser/Radar Detector
- 6.13 Medical devices
- 6.14 Mobile computing
- 6.15 Networked homes
- 6.16 Paging
- 6.17 PCs
- 6.18 PDAs
- 6.19 Smartphones
- 6.20 Video Cameras
- 6.21 Video Conference systems
- 6.22 Walkie Talkie' s / Two Way Radio' s
Appendix
LIST OF FIGURES
- Figure 2.1 - Worldwide Market Forecast Of Silicon Microphones
- Figure 2.2 - Worldwide Forecast Of Silicon And ECM Microphones
- Figure 5.1 - Worldwide Market Shares Of Contact Center/Office Headset
Suppliers
- Figure 5.3 - Worldwide Mobile Headset Market By Application
- Figure 5.4 - Worldwide Market Shares Of Mobile/PC Headset Suppliers
- Figure 5.5 - Worldwide Forecast Of Bluetooth Headsets
- Figure 5.6 - Worldwide Market Shares Of Bluetooth Headset Suppliers
- Figure 5.7 - Worldwide Forecast Of Airline Production
- Figure 6.1 - U.S. Audioconferencing Service Handset Market Shares
- Figure 6.2 - Penetration Rate Of Automotive Telematics
- Figure 6.3 - OEM Automotive Electronics Demand In North America
- Figure 6.4 - OEM Automotive Electronics Demand In North America
- Figure 6.5 - Worldwide Cellular Handset Market Forecast
- Figure 6.6 - U.S. CB Radio Market Shares
- Figure 6.7 - U.S. Integrated Laser/Radar Detector Market Shares
- Figure 6.8 - U.S. $80.3 Billion Medical Devices Market By Type
- Figure 6.9 - Worldwide Wi-Fi And UWB Forecast
- Figure 6.10 - Worldwide Wi-Fi And UWB Market Shares
- Figure 6.11 - Worldwide Forecast Of Smartphones In Use
- Figure 6.12 - Bandwidth Comparison For Business Communications
- Figure 6.13 - Worldwide Video Conferencing Equipment Market Shares
- Figure 6.14 - U.S. Two-Way Radio Market Shares
LIST OF TABLES
- Table 2.1 - Worldwide Forecast Of ECM and Silicon Microphones
- Table 2.2 - Worldwide Forecast Of Consumer Microphones
- Table 3.1 - Worldwide Forecast Of Cellular Handset Audio Speakers
- Table 3.2 - Worldwide Forecast Of Consumer Audio Speakers
- Table 5.1 - Worldwide Forecast Of Contact Center/Office Headsets
- Table 5.2 - Worldwide Forecast Of Mobile/PC Headsets
- Table 5.3 - Worldwide Forecast Of Aviation Headsets
- Table 5.4 - Worldwide Forecast Of Headphones
- Table 5.5 - Worldwide Market Shares Of Headphone Suppliers
- Table 6.1 - U.S. Forecast Of Answering Machine Market
- Table 6.2 - U.S. Market Share Of Answering Machine Suppliers
- Table 6.3 - U.S. Audioconferencing Service Bureau Market Forecast
- Table 6.4 - Worldwide And U.S. Automotive Telematics Market Forecast
- Table 6.5 - Worldwide And U.S. Automotive Telematics Market Forecast
- Table 6.6 - North American Automobile Production Forecast
- Table 6.7 - U.S. And European In-Car Audio Market Shares
- Table 6.8 - Worldwide Cellular Handset Market Shares
- Table 6.9 - U.S. CB Radio Market Forecast
- Table 6.10 - U.S. Corded Phone Market Forecast
- Table 6.11 - U.S. Corded Phone Market Shares
- Table 6.12 - Cordless Phone Manufacturing Capacities In China
- Table 6.13 - U.S. Cordless Phone Forecast
- Table 6.14 - U.S. Cordless Phone Market Shares
- Table 6.15 - U.S. 2.4 GHz Cordless Phone Market Shares
- Table 6.16 - Worldwide Forecast For Digital Cameras
- Table 6.17 - Worldwide Digital Camera Shares
- Table 6.18 - U.S. Fax Machine Market Forecast
- Table 6.19 - U.S. Fax Machine Market Shares
- Table 6.20 - Worldwide Hearing Aid Market Forecast
- Table 6.21 - Worldwide Hearing Aid Market Shares
- Table 6.22 - U.S. Integrated Laser/Radar Detector Market Forecast
- Table 6.23 - Worldwide Audiological Diagnostic Product Market Forecast
- Table 6.24 - Worldwide Audiological Diagnostic Product Market Shares
- Table 6.25 - Worldwide Mobile PC Market Forecast
- Table 6.26 - Worldwide Notebook Market Shares
- Table 6.27 - Worldwide Smart Appliance Market Forecast
- Table 6.28 - U.S. Paging And Messaging Market Forecast
- Table 6.29 - U.S. Paging And Messaging Market Shares
- Table 6.30 - U.S. And Worldwide PC Forecast Per Population
- Table 6.31 - U.S. And Worldwide PC Forecast
- Table 6.32 - Worldwide PC Market Shares
- Table 6.33 - U.S. PC Market Shares
- Table 6.34 - Worldwide PDA Market Forecast
- Table 6.35 - Worldwide PDA Market Shares
- Table 6.36 - Worldwide Smartphone Market Forecast
- Table 6.36 - Worldwide Smartphone Market Shares
- Table 6.38 - Worldwide Video Camera Market Forecast
- Table 6.39 - Worldwide Video Camera Market Shares
- Table 6.40 - U.S. Videoconferencing Market Forecast
- Table 6.41 - Worldwide Video Conferencing Equipment Market Forecast
- Table 6.42 - Worldwide Two-Way Radio Market Forecast
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