Development of a new magnetic circuit for slim microspeakers

In the minimultimedia market, functional diversity, high performance, and design are given top priority. Lightweight mobile phones of unique design especially attract customer interest and are usually considered to be highly competitive items in the marketplace. Therefore, mobile phones need wider and thinner liquid crystal displays and smaller microspeakers with high acoustic performance. There are two main directions for development of slim microspeakers. One is reducing the thickness, and the other is reducing the width. In the case of reducing the width, the total magnet volume is maintained through extending the length of the magnet circuit [ S. M. Hwang , IEEE Trans. Magn. 39 , 2003 ( 2003 ) ]. In contrast, reducing the thickness results in a reduction in total magnet volume unless width is increased, which causes many difficulties in the manufacturing process. In this paper, we introduce a new magnetic circuit for slim microspeakers. This new magnetic circuit, which excludes the top plate, makes it possible to manufacture slimmer microspeakers more cost-effectively without any loss of acoustic performance.