Optimal design of an electret microphone metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor preamplifier

A theoretical noise analysis of the combination of a capacitive microphone and a preamplifier containing a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) and a high-value resistive bias element is given. It is found that the output signal-to-noise ratio for a source follower and for a common-source circuit is almost the same. It is also shown that the output noise can be reduced by making the microphone capacitance as well as the bias resistor as large as possible, and furthermore by keeping the parasitic gate capacitances as low as possible and finally by using an optimum value for the gate area of the MOSFET. The main noise source is the thermal noise of the gate leakage resistance of the MOSFET. It is also shown that short-channel MOSFETs produce more thermal channel noise than longer channel devices.