Sensitivity enhancement of a folded beam MEMS capacitive accelerometer-based microphone for fully implantable hearing application

Abstract

The present work attempts to enhance the sensitivity of a folded beam microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) capacitive accelerometer by optimising the device geometry. The accelerometer is intended to serve as a microphone in the fully implantable hearing application which can be surgically implanted in the middle ear bone structure. For the efficient design of the accelerometer as a fully implantable biomedical device, the design parameters such as size, weight and resonant frequency have been considered. The geometrical parameters are varied to obtain the optimum sensitivity considering the design constraints and the stability of the structure. The optimised design is simulated and verified using COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS 4.2. The stability of the device is ensured using eigenfrequency analysis. Optimised results of the device geometry are presented and discussed. The accelerometer has a sensing area of 1 mm2 and attains a nominal capacitance of 5.3 pF and an optimum sensitivity of 6.89 fF.

Variation of Sensitivity of a MEMS Capacitive Accelerometer Based Microphone with Suspension System Topology

“…An optimal problem with the accelerometer-based hearing aid that optimizes both of these variables was formulated mathematically, and simulative analysis was performed using COMSOL. As stated in the authors 'previous work [9], the various geometry parameters have been optimised. The system parameters also need to meet the constraints that need to be taken into account when designing the middle ear implantable microphone.…”

“…The optimized parameters of the geometry, as shown in Table 2 [9]. The number of sensing fingers is found to be 174 on each side of the central seismic mass.…”

“…The MEMS capacitive accelerometer described in the paper is designed to be placed on umbo to act as a middle ear microphone as shown in Figure 1. Optimizing the geometry of the device has already increased the performance of the accelerometer [9][10][11][12]. This article studies the effect of various suspension system (spring) topologies on the sensitivity of the accelerometer and then proposes the most suitable suspension system for enhanced performance.…”

Enlighten Education to Children via Elegant Art

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