Electret Microphones – Tiny Components Doing Amazing Things!     Alan Butcher Components stocks a wide variety of electret microphone components and it is fascinating for us to see where these small products are actually used.  Our smallest product is just 3mm in diameter!  Microphones convert sound energy to electrical energy and listed below are just a few of the type of applications our products are used in: Specialist audio products for fire and .

How Electret Condenser Microphones work – Microphones convert sound energy (sound waves) to electrical energy (an audio signal).  An electret condenser microphone (ECM) consists of two plates, one fixed (back plate) and one moveable (diaphragm).  There is a small gap between each plate and when sound waves hit the diaphragm, the movement causes the capacitance between the diaphragm and the back plate to change.  This generates a flow of variable electric current and these .