A capacitive sensor assembly includes a capacitive transduction element and an electrical circuit disposed in the housing and electrically coupled to contacts on an external-device interface of the housing. The electrical circuit includes a sampling circuit having an operational sampling phase during which a voltage produced by the capacitive sensor is sampled by a sampling capacitor coupled to a comparator and an operational charging phase during which a second capacitor is charged by a charge and discharge circuit until the output of the comparator changes state, wherein the output of the sampling circuit is a pulse width modulated signal representative of the voltage on the input of the sampling circuit during each sample period. The output of the sampling circuit can be coupled to a delta-sigma analog-to-digital (A/D) converter.

A method of manufacturing a microelectromechanical component, the method may include: forming a mask over a layer, the mask comprising a structured surface; heating a region of the mask comprising the structured surface above a glass transition temperature of the mask to smooth out edges of the structured surface to form a corrugated surface; etching the layer covered by the mask, the etching removing the mask to carry over the corrugated surface of the mask into the layer and to form a corrugated surface of the layer; forming a diaphragm over the layer to form a corrugated region of the diaphragm configured to actuate; and forming an electrically-conductive component configured to at least one of: provide a force to actuate the diaphragm in response to an electrical signal transmitted to the electrically-conductive component and provide an electrical signal in response to an actuation of the diaphragm.

Provided is an acoustic transducer including: a semiconductor substrate; a vibrating membrane provided above the semiconductor substrate, including a vibrating electrode; and a fixed membrane provided above the semiconductor substrate, including a fixed electrode, the acoustic transducer detecting a sound wave according to changes in capacitances between the vibrating electrode and the fixed electrode, converting the sound wave into electrical signals, and outputting the electrical signals. At least one of the vibrating electrode and the fixed electrode is divided into a plurality of divided electrodes, and the plurality of divided electrodes outputting the electrical signals.

A vibration sensor having a moveable mass being suspended in a suspension member and being adapted to move in response to vibrations or accelerations. The moveable mass and the suspension member are rigidly connected across one or more gaps formed by respective opposing surfaces of the moveable mass and the suspension member. The vibration sensor includes a damping arrangement having a damping substance. The moveable mass is arranged to interact directly or indirectly with the damping substance in order to reduce a mechanical resonance peak of the vibration sensor.

Measures for regulating the electrical bias voltage at the measuring capacitor of a MEMS sensor element are described. A base voltage is applied to the measuring capacitor and regulated in such a way that the potential difference between the two electrode sides of the measuring capacitor corresponds to the setpoint voltage. The base voltage is regulated in a low-voltage range.

Offset cartridge microphones are provided that include multiple unidirectional microphone cartridges mounted in an offset geometry. Various desired polar patterns and/or desired steering angles can be formed by processing the audio signals from the multiple cartridges, including a toroidal polar pattern. The offset geometry of the cartridges may include mounting the cartridges so that they are immediately adjacent to one another and so that their center axes are offset from one another. The microphones may have a more consistent on-axis frequency response and may more uniformly form desired polar patterns and/or desired steering angles by reducing the interference and reflections within and between the cartridges.

In some embodiments, a microphone system may include a deformable element that may be made of a material that is subject to deformation in response to external phenomenon. Sensing ports may be in contact with a respective region of the deformable element and may be configured to sense a deformation of a region of the deformable element and generate a signal in response thereto. The plurality of signals may be useable to determine spatial dependencies of the external phenomenon. The external phenomenon may be pressure and the signals may be useable to determine spatial dependencies of the pressure.

In one embodiment of an audio system, a transducer can be coupled to a passive acoustic directional amplifier to provide various benefits and improvements, including improvements to: speech intelligibility, signal-to-noise ratio, effective equivalent input noise, at-a-distance acoustic signal reception, and directional preference. In another embodiment, the shape of an interior surface of a passive acoustic directional amplifier is provided. In another embodiment, the material properties of an interior surface of a passive acoustic directional amplifier are provided.

An electret element includes: an electret film that contains silicon oxide; and a protective film formed over the electret film and constituted of aluminum oxide deposited through an atomic layer deposition method.

A sound pickup device includes: a housing; a mount portion via which the housing on an object constituting a portion of a musical instrument; a sound pickup including a plurality of the microphones respectively oriented in different directions; a first output configured to output a sound signal indicating a sound input to the sound pickup; and an installer configured to install the sound pickup on the housing such that each of the plurality of microphones is oriented away from the object when the housing is mounted on the object via the mount portion.