Balanced electrostatic all-silicon MEMS speakers

MEMS based audio reproduction systems have recently become a vibrant field of research and development. Benchmarks for size, power consumption and cost efficiency are very demanding. Electrostatic MEMS actuators offer a high potential to meet both, commercial and technical targets. Macroscopic electrostatic headsets are among the best that audio markets offer today. Using MEMS technology, power consumption and voltage requirements are reduced to the needs of portable devices. In this contribution we report for the first time a balanced MEMS µSpeaker, using two antagonistic electrostatic forces, improving electromechanical stability and harmonic distortion. The distinction to state-of-the-art MEMS push-pull actuators and the acoustic performance is presented.