Electret Microphones

electret microphones | Open Music Labs
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Electret Microphones
Electret microphones are the most commonly used microphones today.
Every cellphone and laptop has one embedded into it, and many studio
microphones are also electrets. They can have an extremely wide frequency
response (from 10Hz to 30kHz ), and typically cost less than a dollar. They
are also very small and quite sensitive. Despite these good characteristics,
they can also have a few drawbacks, such as a high noise floor, high
distortion, and uneven frequency response. We will dissect an electret
microphone, explain how it works, and talk about the reasons for its various
attributes.
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Figure 1 A common electret microphone capsule.
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Open Music Labs 2015

Mail us: questions@openmusiclabs.com
Figure 2 Front view.
Figure 3 Back view.
In Figures 1 3, a common through-hole electret microphone capsule is

shown. This capsule is on the larger side, and has two leads coming out for
mounting to a PCB. A surface-mount (SMT) capsule would just have 2
bumps of solder on the bottom. 3 terminal capsules are also made, but are
not very common. We will explain why later.
The top of an electret capsule is often covered with a porous material which
is attached with glue. This is the black circle in Figures 2 and 4. This material
keeps dust and other debris away from the sensitive electret material, and
also gives some protection from wind noise on the microphone.
Figure 4 Capsule with dust cover removed.
Underneath this dust cover is a small hole in the aluminum capsule. This is
where the sound enters the microphone. On a directional microphone there
are also holes in the back of the capsule (through the PCB) to help cancel out
sounds from the sides.
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The aluminum capsule contains the electret material itself, and a small
amplifier, which can be seen in Figure 5.
Figure 5 Contents of microphone capsule (dust cover, capsule, electret diaphragm,

amplifier module).
The electret material is the shiny silver circle shown in the middle of Figure
5. It is made of a metalized mylar film which is adhered to a metal washer.
There is also a small red plastic spacer to keep the film a fixed distance from
the amplifier module. Both the spacer and electret are extremely thin (.001
or less).
Figure 6 Close up of plastic spacer and electret diaphragm. Note that the electret
diaphragm is mounted to a small metal washer.
The electret material is capable of holding a fixed electric charge, which does
not decay with time. This is different from a conventional condenser
microphone which needs to have a charge placed on it (i.e. phantom power).
When air impinges upon the diaphragm, it moves back and forth, changing
the distance to the amplifier module pick-up plate, which in turn creates a
voltage difference. How exactly this works will be explained later, but the
plastic spacer keeps the diaphragm from touching the pick-up plate of the
amplifier module. An exploded view of the amplifier module is shown below.
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Figure 7 Exploded view of the amplifier module (pick-up plate, transistor, plastic
housing, PCB).
The amplifier module consists of the pick-up plate, a plastic housing, a single
transistor, and the PCB. The pick-up plate has holes in it for the displaced air
to move through, and is connected to one lead of the transistor (usually by a
small tack weld, but sometimes by spring force of the transistor lead itself).
The other two leads of the transistor are soldered to the PCB. So, on a
through-hole electret capsule, the two leads sticking out the bottom are just
the leads of the transistor itself. The plastic housing keeps all of these
elements rigidly fixed within the aluminum housing, and insulates the
pick-up plate from shorting to the housing.
The amplifier consists of a single JFET transistor, with the gate connected to
the pick-up plate, the source connected to ground, and the signal appearing
on the drain. This is called a common-source configuration, as the source is
connected to ground, which is common to all signals. The JFET in this
electret microphone is a 2SK596, which is designed for low-noise
applications. A datasheet for it can be found here.
Figure 8 Amplifier transistor (2SK596).
The transistor is connected to the PCB, which has two conductive pads, and a
conductive ring around the outside. One of the pads is connected to this ring,
and acts as a ground trace. When the aluminum housing is placed on, it is
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bent into contact with this ring, grounding the whole case.
Figure 9 Electret module PCB.
Since the electret material has a conductive film on the outside, and is
connected to a metal washer which touches the aluminum capsule, the entire
assembly is essentially sealed in a grounded case. A cross section of the
entire electret microphone module is shown below.
Figure 10 Cross-sectional view of electret microphone module.
As can be seen above, the charged electret material and the amplifier
pick-up plate are very closely spaced and have a lot of area facing one
another, and therefore create a capacitor. In the olden days, capacitors were
called condensers, hence the name condenser microphone. The electrical
schematic of the full electret microphone is shown below.
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Figure 11 Equivalent schematic of electret microphone.
The JFET has three pins: the gate (G), drain (D), and source (S). The gate is
the control pin, and goes to one plate of the microphone capacitor (with
the electret material forming the other plate). The source is connected to
ground, and the drain is connected to a resistor and power supply in your
external circuit. In a 3 terminal microphone element, both the source and
the drain would be pinned out, and a third pin for ground would be used.
This allows for using a different amplifier configuration.
So, how does this all work?
The electret maintains a fixed charge, and therefore maintains a voltage
across the capacitor. The mathematical equation for the voltage on a
capacitor is V=Q/C, where Q is the charge on the capacitor, and C is the
capacitance. In the case of the microphone, since the diaphragm is moving
back and forth, the shape of the capacitor is changing, and its capacitance
changes accordingly. The equation for a parallel plate capacitor is C=e*A/t,
where e is a material constant representing the properties of the material
between the plates, A is the area of the plates, and t is the separation
between the plates. As the electret material moves due to sound pressure
variations, t becomes larger and smaller, and the voltage varies linearly with
this distance since V=Q/C=Q/(e*A/t)=Q*t/e*A.
As the voltage at the gate varies, the gate to source voltage (Vgs) varies since
the source is grounded. This variation in Vgs causes the JFET to conduct
more and less, and the current through the drain (Id) changes, producing a
signal across the drain resistor (R). The output is taken from the drain.
A JFET is used as the amplifier because it has a really high input resistance
(30Mohms or more). This means that almost no current is pulled off the
electret capacitor. If the amplifier had a lower input resistance, the low
frequency response of the microphone would suffer. This is because the
input stage acts like a high-pass filter, with the electret being the capacitor,
and the input of the amplifier being the resistor, and larger values of R and C
give lower cut-off frequencies.
Where is the noise?
The main noise sources in this microphone are pick-up noise and transistor
noise. Since the entire capsule is sealed and grounded, the pick-up noise is
very low and usually not noticeable. The transistor noise, on the other hand,
can be quite high, due to the high input resistance on the JFET. Typical
values are around -120dB to -110dB, which may sound rather low, but the
audio signal level is usually less than -40dB, so its only an 80dB signal to
noise ratio (SNR). This is a common issue with condenser microphones due
to the high input resistances required. Fortunately, this noise floor does not
increase appreciably with signal level, so the SNR can improve greatly for
high audio levels.
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Where is the distortion?

The drawback to driving a microphone hard, is that the distortion will
increase. The common 2 terminal electret microphone is particularly prone
to this since it is setup as a common-source amplifier. The input to the JFET
is basically a diode, which means it has the same non-linear behaviour as a
diode. For input voltage swings greater than 10mV or so, you start seeing
pretty heavy distortion. And, to make things worse (or better if you like
distortion), the effects are not symmetric, as the diode conducts in one
direction, but not in the other.
The 3 terminal electret microphone gets past some of this JFET distortion by
using a source-follower configuration, which connects the resistor between
the source and ground, so the source can follow the gate signal, and the
voltage drop across the internal diode can stay relatively constant. But, this
configuration isnt as common, as the large production applications (e.g.
cellphones) usually operate at low input volume levels, and distortion isnt as
much of a concern (in some ways the compression could be seen as a
feature). The 2 terminal microphones also require a less complicated
amplifier circuit, and only 2 contacts on a jack if an external microphone is
used.
Another source of distortion is the diaphragm movement itself. The
diaphragm is not moving perfectly linearly to the fixed amplifier pick-up
plate. It bows in and out since its edges are fixed, so the voltage doesnt vary
perfectly linearly as well. The greater this bowing, the less linear it will
respond. For this reasons, a smaller electret diaphragm (and smaller
capsule) will give less distortion. It will have less surface area and therefore
bow less for a given sound pressure. This will keep the JFET voltages lower
and the diaphragm in a more linear range.
What accounts for its frequency response?
As stated earlier, the high input impedance of the JFET determines the low
end of the microphones response. The high end, on the other hand, is a
function of how fast the diaphragm can move back and forth. This is where
the electret shines, as the material is so thin and small, that it can move very
quickly. It has little mass, and can usually vibrate up to 30KHz. The smaller
the electret capsule, the higher the frequency response will be.
But, because the diaphragm is so light and flexible, it can bend in a number
of ways, giving uneven frequency response. And, just as a speaker cone will
move differently depending upon volume and frequency (exciting different
vibrational modes), so will an electret diaphragm. In this respect, the smaller
diameter diaphragms are better, as they are relatively more stiff in the radial
direction.
What determines its sensitivity?
The larger the electret surface area, the more it will move for a given sound
pressure. So there is a direct tradeoff between the other parameters
discussed and sensitivity. A smaller diaphragm will tend to give better high
frequency and distortion characteristics, but will not be as loud, and
therefore have worse SNR. A smaller diaphragm will also have a smaller
capacitance, so its low frequency response wont be as good. So be careful
when picking a microphone for your application. Buy a few different kinds
and try them out. Weve found that they vary wildly between manufacturers,
and even between the same part in a production run. Luckily they are
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inexpensive, so you can afford to try a few dozen and see what works for you.
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Figure 1 A common electret microphone capsule.