Microphone port with foreign material ingress protection

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9497529-B2
Application number	US-201414183306-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 18, 2014
Priority date	Feb 18, 2014
Publication date	Nov 15, 2016
Grant date	Nov 15, 2016

Abstract

An electronic device may be provided with a microphone in a microphone port. A shield may cover a microelectromechanical systems microphone device on a microphone substrate. An opening in the microphone substrate may form a sound port for the microphone. The microphone port may be formed by perforations in the microphone substrate or other layers such as a flexible printed circuit layer, a sheet metal layer, a layer of adhesive, a flexible polymer carrier layer in an adhesive tape, or an electronic device housing. The perforations may be sufficiently small to help resist the intrusions of foreign material such as liquid and dirt into the sound port of the microphone. Larger openings may be formed in other structures such as an electronic device housing. The larger openings may serve as sound passageways for the microphone port while being sufficiently large to resist clogging.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. Apparatus, comprising:
an electronic device housing having opposing inner and outer surfaces;
a first plurality of openings each of which passes part way from the inner surface into the electronic device housing;
a second plurality of openings each of which has a larger diameter than the openings of the first plurality of openings and each of which passes part way from the outer surface into the electronic device housing, wherein the second plurality of openings joins with the first plurality of openings to form microphone port sound passageways through the electronic device housing; and
a microphone having a sound port in alignment with the first plurality of openings that receives sound through the microphone port sound passageways, wherein the first plurality of openings is interposed between the second plurality of openings and the sound port.

2. The apparatus defined in claim 1 further comprising a flexible printed circuit to which the microphone is mounted, wherein the flexible printed circuit has an opening aligned with the sound port.

3. The apparatus defined in claim 2 further comprising a layer of adhesive that attaches the flexible printed circuit to the inner surface of the electronic device housing, wherein the layer of adhesive has an opening aligned with the opening in the flexible printed circuit.

4. Apparatus, comprising:
a microphone having a sound port;
a flexible printed circuit having an opening aligned with the sound port; and
adhesive tape attached to the flexible printed circuit, wherein the adhesive tape has a flexible polymer carrier layer with a plurality of perforations aligned with the opening in the flexible printed circuit, wherein the adhesive tape comprises an adhesive layer formed on a surface of the polymer carrier layer, and wherein the adhesive layer comprises an opening that is larger than each of the plurality of perforations in the flexible polymer layer.

5. The apparatus defined in claim 4 wherein the adhesive layer attaches the flexible polymer carrier layer to the flexible printed circuit.

6. The apparatus defined in claim 5 wherein the opening in the adhesive layer is aligned with the opening in the flexible printed circuit.

7. The apparatus defined in claim 4 further comprising:
an electronic device housing having an opening aligned with the opening in the flexible printed circuit, wherein the adhesive layer is a first adhesive layer that attaches the flexible polymer carrier layer to the flexible printed circuit, wherein the adhesive tape includes a second adhesive layer that attaches the flexible polymer carrier layer to the electronic device housing, wherein the opening in the first adhesive layer is aligned with the opening in the flexible printed circuit and wherein the second adhesive layer has an additional opening aligned with the opening in the electronic device housing.

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Jeziorek Peter N
• Crosby Justin D
• Nguyen Trang Thi-Thanh
• Goldberg Michelle R

Classifications

• H04R2499/11

  Transducers incorporated or for use in hand-held devices, e.g. mobile phones, PDA's, camera's · CPC title

• H04R1/086 Primary

  Protective screens, e.g. all weather or wind screens · CPC title

• H04R19/005

  using semiconductor materials · CPC title

• H04R19/04

  Microphones (H04R19/01 takes precedence) · CPC title