MIC-ON-A-CHIP

Seminar by NIKHIL.R S7 ECE Roll No.21

ABSTRACT

Spurred on by advances in MEMS CMOS processing, a lowcost, tiny single-chip microphone with high acoustic quality has moved from fantasy to reality. It is the industry's first single-chip CMOS MEMS microphone AKU2000 and was developed by Akustica, a "fab-less" semiconductor company focused on developing advanced Sensory Silicon products Fabricated on a MEMS CMOS process, these tiny, low-cost ICs solve acoustic performance issues for many computing and consumer electronics devices. The microphone chip also help manufacturers of laptop PCs, mobile phones, and other digital media devices to overcome the acoustic problems that have seriously limited the widespread adoption of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other voice-based applications in the past. The AKU2000's design enables the use of digital-bus architecture for the audio system of a variety of electronic devices. This not only simplifies system design, it also expedites the time-to-market

INTRODUCTION
Microphone audio acoustics play a vital role in consumer electronics. Voice input quality has never been more important. Microsoft's Vista operating system is designed for voice-enabled applications and microphone array support. Intel's high-definition audio chip set enables enhanced voice capture through array microphones, giving users more accurate speech input. And VoIP applications require better acoustic performance. The chip replaces common Electret Condenser Microphone (ECM) units, a technology that's remained fundamentally unchanged for 50 years. ECMs are mechanical devices with size, manufacturability, and uniformity limitations

What is ACOUSTICS?

Acoustics is the science of sound, including its production,

transmission, and effects. In present usage, the term sound implies not only phenomena in air responsible for the sensation of hearing but also whatever else is governed by analogous physical principles. Thus, disturbances with frequencies too low (infrasound) or too high (ultrasound) to be heard by a normal person are also regarded as sound. One may speak of underwater sound, sound in solids, or structure-borne sound. Acoustics is distinguished from optics in that sound is a mechanical, rather than an electromagnetic, wave motion. The broad scope of acoustics as a area of interest and endeavor can be ascribed to a variety of reasons. First, there is the ubiquitous nature of mechanical radiation, generated by natural causes and by human activity. Then, there is the existence of the sensation of hearing, of the human vocal ability, of communication via sound, along with the variety of psychological influences sound has on those who hear it. Such areas as speech, music, sound recording and reproduction, telephony, sound reinforcement, audiology, architectural acoustics, and noise control have strong association with the sensation of hearing. That sound is a means of transmitting information, irrespective of our natural ability to hear, is also a significant factor, especially in underwater acoustics. A variety of applications, in basic research and in technology, exploit the fact that the transmission of sound is affected by, and consequently gives information concerning, the medium through which it passes and intervening bodies and inhomogeneities. The physical effects of sound on substances and bodies with which it interacts present other areas of concern and of technical application.

Electret Condenser Microphone

Quartz crystals have remarkable mechanical and piezoelectric properties that have made them the timing components of choice for the past fifty years, but they also have some significant drawbacks. These include their sensitivity to heat, shock, vibration, and relatively large size. Crystals also have higher failure rates than silicon integrated circuits. And unlike silicon components, crystals become more expensive and perform worse when they are squeezed into smaller packages. These drawbacks are becoming more apparent and constraining in modern products. Many decades of research into various piezoelectrics, ceramics, and LC circuits, has uncovered no material or technology that is able to match the quartz crystal's exceptional temperature stability and phase noise performance. This has now changed with advances in MEMS design and manufacturing techniques. What have been the industry challenges that have required a new technology? Most microphones in consumer electronics (CE) products today are based on technology that has remained fundamentally unchanged for 50 years. Problems with the Electret Condenser Microphone (ECM) include noise, size, and manual assembly.However, the main challenge for the audio system designer is to achieve the lowest overall noise in the system design. The noise of an ECM is a function of several sources: electrical noise resulting from fluctuations in the bias voltage, noise of the FET, board noise, acoustic self noise of the diaphragm, and external Electromagnetic (EM) and Radio Frequency (RF) fields that are coupled into the high impedance input of the FET.

Decades of development
Unfortunately, the promise of cheap, high quality, fully integrated resonators ran into harsh realities. Early researchers made many advances but also discovered many difficult technical issues. These included silicon's large frequency temperature coefficient, aging from material fatigue, and drift from packaging contamination. This drift was one of the most intractable problems because the resonant elements were so small that a single atomic layer of contaminant could dramatically shift a MEMS resonator's frequency beyond acceptable limits. The technology also had cost problems. Much of the packaging MEMS devices traditionally used was similar to that used for quartz crystals. Since this was a major portion of the cost of the finished quartz components, it was hard to gain a significant price advantage over the older more mature technology. In short, early MEMS resonators lacked the performance but had the cost burdens of quartz. This has changed with the development of new fabrication and packaging technologies. MEMS oscillators are now a technical reality, have good performance, are very small, and are extremely cost-effective

About Akustica
Founded in 2001, Akustica, Inc. is a privately held company based in Pittsburgh, PA. Through a revolutionary technology known as Sensory Silicon, Akustica products enable electronic devices to sense and respond to the world around them. By leveraging standard CMOS processes and MEMS technology, Akustica acoustic system-on-chip solutions combine the functionality of microphones with microelectronics and software onto a single chip. Only Akustica's CMOS MEMS Microphone Chips enable single-chip solutions with arrays of transducers and integrated signal processing that disrupt both conventional microphone and speaker technologies. Smaller and more reliable than the current crop of ECMs, silicon microphones can be customized with advanced sound capture features and noise reduction capabilities.

About the AKU2000

The AKU2000 is a digital output microphone chip that provides high-quality voice input for PC laptops, digital video and still cameras, and other portable computing devices. Surface-mountable and automatic pick-and-place compatible, this monolithic device is optimal for use in microphone array applications requiring a high degree of noise immunity. The AKU2000 is especially ideal for microphone array applications.Additionally, the AKU2000 is suited for other portable applications requiring RF/EM noise immunity and low power, including cell phones and digital cameras. The small form factor and surface-mount capability of the AKU2000 allows placement of the microphone in very thin profile end-user devices.

Block Diagram
1. Acoustic Transducer 2. Analog output Amplifier 3. 4th order Sigma-Delta Modulator

A Sigma-Delta-Modulator (SDM) transforms a band limited input signal into a digital 1-bit output signal. The input signal modulates the output pulse density. Fig. 1 shows a typical SDM

KEY FEATURES
High performance, omni directional digital output microphone Monolithic CMOS MEMS chip Integrated transducer, output amplifier and 4th order sigma-delta modulator Pulse Density Modulated (PDM) output Highly matched microphones in frequency and phase response Supports 1-4 MHz clock input +2.8V to +3.6V operation 75 A current consumption in power-down mode Lead-free solder reflow compatible

CHIP FABRICATION
Akustica foresees a vast market not only for its silicon microphones, but also for CMOS MEMS sensor technology across the board. It trademarked the term "Sensory Silicon" to describe a platform upon which monolithic analog and digital sensory systems will be built to hear, speak, and sense the world around them. Akustica's CMOS MEMS microphones are fabricated from the metal dielectric layers of the CMOS process and then deposited during the standard process flow. This differs markedly from other CMOS MEMS processes, where devices are fabricated in films on top of the CMOS chip and the transducer is made from proprietary materials. The chip design is not just CMOS-compatible, it is made on a 'standard' CMOS process.

While it took several innovations to make MEMS oscillators commercially practical, the key developments were in the MEMS First and EpiSeal packaging technologies.(Fig1)

MEMS First and EpiSeal : The MEMS First process builds MEMS components with standard CMOS foundry tools, avoiding costly custom processes and materials while leveraging the high-volume manufacturing and packaging infrastructure used to make standard CMOS circuits. This provides vital economic leverage by repurposing the tremendous investments made by the CMOS industry. One vital part of this, the EpiSeal process, encapsulates the MEMS resonators in an ultra-clean hermetic vacuum environment. This ensures that the resonators will stay stable over a lifetime of service. Figure 1 illustrates a series of MEMS fabrication cross sections. The process begins (Fig. 2a) with etching 0.4 m wide trenches down to the oxide insulation layer of 10 m Silicon On Insulator (SOI) wafers to form resonator and electrode structures. In operation, these resonators will vibrate horizontally to the surface of the wafer.

The trenches are covered (Fig. 2b) with thin layers of oxide, silicon and polysilicon. Small vents are etched in the polysilicon layer through which some of the oxide is removed to release the resonator. The wafers are placed (Fig. 2c) in an epitaxial reactor at over 1,000C to burn off contaminants, seal the vents shut, and grow thick silicon and polysilicon caps. The high temperature also anneals the resonators, smoothes the resonator surfaces, and leaves the resonators permanently sealed within extremely clean vacuum cavities. The thick polysilicon caps are mechanically strong and withstand over a 100 atmospheres pressure during subsequent plastic molding.

Vias are formed (Fig. 2d) through the cap silicon to form electric contacts to the resonator's drive and sense electrodes. The wafers are finished with simple metal traces and bondpads for multichip or system-on-chip packaged oscillators, or CMOS circuitry for integrated oscillators. Standard CMOS circuits may be built on the same die with the buried resonators, providing that care is taken not to place transistors in the polysilicon caps above the cavities.

The MEMS resonators are small and supply small signals. It is therefore necessary to keep the drive and sense circuitry close to the resonator. To do this, SiTime packages a CMOS driver chip with the resonator. The combination of resonator and driver is an oscillator. Figure 3 illustrates the packaged oscillator configuration.

SENSORY SILICON ADVANTAGES

Akustica Sensory Silicon microphones are inherently superior to conventional and multi-chip microphones in virtually every way: Smaller and Thinner Can be mounted almost anywhere, including bezels and inside products too thin or small for other microphones. Digital Output Eliminates costly shielded cabling required to protect analog signals from RFI/EMI, allowing microphones to be located almost anywhere. Surface Mountable Compatible with automated manufacturing systems, reducing manufacturing costs and increasing end product reliability. Acoustics Highly matched microphones produce more consistent audio characteristics for effective arrays and predictable, reliable product performance. Noise Immunity Acoustic microstructures are highly immune to magnetic interference and mechanical vibration, while digital chip output is unaffected by RF and EM noise present in consumer electronics devices. Low Power For longer life in battery powered products. Standard CMOS For manufacturability, reliability, low cost and quick design cycles.

Potential of the microphone and the practical implementation

An important feature of today's mobile computers is the ability to provide high quality voice input for hands-free communication. The optimal solution to support this application is to embed the microphones directly into the bezel of the laptop display. While an embedded microphone array is ideal from a performance point of view, the laptop designer is faced with mechanical, electrical, and acoustical challenges when developing an integrated platform. The AKU2000 digital-output microphone has been designed to overcome these challenges and enable simple integration of a microphone array into a laptop PC. The AKU2000 exhibits many qualities that make it ideal for integrated microphone array applications in laptop and desktop computers. Most importantly, the robust digital output is immune to the EM or RF interference that can prohibit optimal acoustic placement of a standard analogue-output microphone in a laptop computer. The small footprint and thinness also increase the flexibility of the microphone placement.

Future potentials for this technology

The overall microphone market comprises 1.5 billion units annually, most of which are ECMs. However, CMOS microphones continue to penetrate this market: Forecasts show growth from 32 million units in 2005 to 518 million units by 2008, with their share of the market increasing as well. Microphones are only one possibility. CMOS MEMS will enable single-chip integration of all kinds of electro-mechanical sensor structures with analogue and digital signal processing functions to produce acoustic, inertial, and RF systems-on chip. As a result, countless electronic products will be able to hear, speak, and sense the world around them.

Conclusion
Microphone audio acoustics play a vital role in consumer electronics. Voice input quality has never been more important. Microsoft's Vista operating system is designed for voice-enabled applications and microphone array support. Intel's high-definition audio chip set enables enhanced voice capture through array microphones, giving users more accurate speech input. And VoIP applications require better acoustic performance. Fabricated on a MEMS CMOS process, these tiny, low-cost ICs solve acoustic performance issues for many computing and consumer electronics devices. The microphone chip also help manufacturers of laptop PCs, mobile phones, and other digital media devices to overcome the acoustic problems that have seriously limited the widespread adoption of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

FUTURE IS HERE
As Akustica digital microphones transform today's computers, phones, headsets and other products, we are hard at work applying Sensory Silicon technology to create new kinds of microstructures and even more revolutionary products. Akustica has already prototyped a wide variety of functionality using our proven CMOS MEMS platform. We are passionate about the potential, and we hope to spark your imagination about what the near future of Sensory Silicon holds in store. Speakers The higher fidelity, smaller size and lower power requirements of Akustica speaker chips will improve the performance of phones, hearing aids, PDAs and other personal products. Inertial Sensors Structures similar to those in Sensory Silicon microphones can be used to place accelerometers, free-fall sensors, tri-axial and angular rate sensors, and even gyros on-chip with other processing circuitry. The application potential of these sensors includes low-cost impact protection, handheld devices that respond to users' gestures, enhanced GPS systems and many others. RF Switches Mechanical microstructures can create low insertion loss RF switches to replace less efficient transistors or relays and improve the performance, efficiency, size and battery life of phones, test equipment and a wide range of other products. Tunable Components Sensory Silicon technology can be used to create variable capacitors and higher Q inductors on silicon. Resonators, "Crystals" and More The mechanical nonlinearity of Sensory Silicon permits resonators and crystals to be created on silicon, including microstructures that combine both demodulation and filtering functionality.

The MEMS resonators are small and supply small signals. It is therefore necessary to keep the drive and sense circuitry close to the resonator. To do this, SiTime packages a CMOS driver chip with the resonator. The combination of resonator and driver is an oscillator. Figure 3 illustrates the packaged oscillator configuration. After standard dicing, the MEMS resonators and the CMOS driver ICs are molded into standard plastic packages. SiTime chose QFN-type plastic injection molded packaging for high reliability, low lead inductance, and good thermal performance. This package style also enjoys flexible pad layout and low cost. The first SiTime products are packaged in 2.0x2.5, 2.5x3.2, 3.2x5.0 and 5.0x7.0 mm form factors with 0.85 mm height. These oscillators are direct replacements for quartz crystal based oscillators, fitting onto standard printed circuit board pad layouts. It is especially noteworthy that this final packaging is done with inexpensive plastic molding. Quartz crystals are vacuum packaged in metal or ceramic enclosures. These are expensive, often dominating the final product manufacturing costs, and are not shared by the rest of the electronics industry. SiTime's resonators are intrinsically stable. They are made from annealed silicon and silicon dioxide, nearly ideal materials to resist drift. This is compounded with the extreme cleanliness of the resonator chamber that prevents surface contamination and resultant de-tuning of the MEMS structure. Finally, the high-temperature annealing process eliminates any flaws, stresses and other mechanical defects that could affect stability. Measurements at SiTime show resonator frequency drift of less than 0.05 ppm (parts per million) over two weeks at elevated temperature. Earlier investigations conducted at Stanford University demonstrated resonator frequency drift of less than one part per million over one year. These were measured without pre-annealing or pre-aging of the resonators. This is more stable than similarly treated quartz. Quartz drifts primarily because it cannot be annealed at temperatures over 573C without undergoing a lattice change that renders it useless. This lower temperature tolerance requires that quartz crystals must be stabilized using more time-consuming, more costly, and less effective techniques (See the sidebar: "The Art of Stabilizing Quartz Crystals"). Quartz's lower maximum anneal temperature also makes it incompatible with the surface reformation that SiTime performs on its silicon resonators. Consequently, aging related frequency drift in quartz crystals is partially caused by changes in the mechanical properties of the crystal itself.

The ultra-clean EpiSeal encapsulated resonators have been tested for more than 300 temperature cycles from -50 to +80C with no discernable frequency shift or thermal hysteresis. Precision laboratory tests show the MEMS resonators have intrinsic hysteresis of less than +/- 0.05 ppm. In the case of quartz crystals, thermal hysteresis is caused by vacuum cavity contamination, support stress, and various poorly understood intrinsic effects. Common quartz AT-cut crystals in small packages typically show 0.1 to 0.5 ppm hysteresis.

What solutions have Akustica developed to meet industry challenges? Single-chip digital, silicon microphone solutions developed on the CMOS MEMS platform free consumer electronic device designers and manufacturers from many of the problems associated with ECMs. When electronic circuitry is fabricated within microns of the acoustic structure, the short trace lengths lead to an inherently improved ability to mitigate RF noise. The CMOS MEMS microphone has a very short diaphragm to preamp distance and better input to output isolation due to the on-chip amplification stage as opposed to the FET in an ECM. Since there is better power supply and output signal isolation as well as a shorter distance between the diaphragm and the preamplifier, there is less chance of coupling EM fields into the microphone. The AKU2000 CMOS MEMS microphones also integrate an analogue-todigital converter on the chip, creating a microphone with a robust digital output. Since the majority of portable applications will ultimately convert the analogue output of the microphone to a digital signal for processing, the system architecture can be made completely digital, removing noise-prone analogue signals from the circuit board and simplifying the overall design. CMOS MEMS microphones also solve many of the mechanical design and manufacturing challenges associated with using an ECM. Firstly, the monolithic nature of the CMOS MEMS microphone enables a footprint and height that can be less than half that of a traditional ECM size. Secondly, the small size and mass of the CMOS MEMS microphone diaphragm which has a diameter of less than 0.5mm leads to improved vibration immunity as compared with an ECM which has a diaphragm diameter from 4-6mm.

Thirdly, since CMOS MEMS microphones are fabricated using standard CMOS materials and processes, they are inherently able to withstand the high temperatures required for surface mounting. Therefore, no mechanical interconnect is required which leads to another significant reduction in overall height of the microphone system. Finally, the surface mount and pick and place compatibility of the CMOS silicon microphone reduces cost by eliminating manual assembly, thereby improving reliability, manufacturing throughput, and yield. The widespread availability of well-maintained CMOS models and simulation tools results in products that can go from design to prototype in a matter of weeks. Leveraging the economies of scale, high quality, and maturity of the semiconductor industry, CMOS MEMS provides cost effective solutions that can be incorporated into mobile phones, digital devices, and automotive accessories.