There is not a large and accessible market for purchasing testing devices for MEMS microphone production. Or, perhaps, the methods and devices used to test acoustic MEMS are not prevalent or easy to find. One product that we found which was reasonably suited to our goals, developed by Analog Devices and National Instruments, was quoted at $40,000 [1]. This system tests two MEMS in parallel, and utilizes LabVIEW software coupled with PXI modular instrumentation [3]. However, this system also tests MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes. A report also mentioned that the previous solution for such a system cost $450,000 [1].
There are other aspects of our proposed design which we found could be purchased in modules, such as a testing interface from Listen Inc which would provide signal conditioning from the MEMS microphones, but did not include a stimulus device or signal generation [2].
It seems as if there has been a successful 32 device testing system developed by Jetek Technology. Jemmy Chen explains in an NI case study that the system uses the “industry standard” PXI platform coupled with LabVIEW software, to test 32 devices in parallel [5].
References
[1] http://semiconwest.org/sites/semiconwest.org/files/Srini%20Badri_National%20Instruments.pdf
[2] http://www.listeninc.com/us/products/mems_microphone_interfaces.html
[3] http://sine.ni.com/cs/app/doc/p/id/cs-13005
[4] http://www.mbelectronique.fr/Station-de-test-sous-pointes_PAP200LP_Specifications.pdf