SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETECTING SUBSTRATE CHANGE USING SOUND

1 . A system for detecting a change in a substrate comprising:

a transducer that is frequency matched to the substrate and to provide an electrical signal characterizing a reflected sound wave by the substrate; and

an acoustic wave analysis system to detect a change in a physical characteristic of the substrate.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the physical characteristic is a thickness of the substrate.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the acoustic wave analysis system is to detect a layer on the substrate.

4 . The system of claim 3 , wherein detection of the layer on the substrate corresponds to detecting the change in the physical characteristic of the substrate.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the acoustic wave analysis system comprises:

a frequency domain transformer to convert the electrical signal from a time domain to a frequency domain to provide a frequency spectrum representation of the electrical signal; and

a substrate change detector to detect the change in the physical characteristic of the substrate based on the frequency spectrum.

6 . The system of claim 5 , wherein the change in the physical characteristic of the substrate correspond to one of a decrease in thickness of the substrate, a change in density of the substrate, and an increase in thickness of the substrate, the increase in the thickness of the substrate corresponding to a formation of a layer on the substrate.

7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the substrate change detector outputs an alert in response to detecting the change in the physical characteristic.

8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the alert is provided to another system or device in response to detected change in thickness.

9 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the acoustic wave analysis system is implemented on one or more computing platforms.

10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more computing platforms are part of a cloud computing environment.

11 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the transducer includes a piezoelectric material that is frequency matched to the substrate.

12 . An ultrasonic transducer for detecting a change in a substrate comprising:

a first electrode;

a second electrode; and

a piezoelectric material between the first electrode and the second electrode, wherein the transducer is frequency matched to the substrate.

13 . The transducer of claim 12 , further comprising a backing material.

14 . The transducer of claim 12 , further comprising an acoustic matching layer.

15 . A method comprising:

forming a piezoelectric material having defined properties so that a frequency bandwidth of the piezoelectric material includes a resonance frequency of the substrate; and

constructing a transducer with the formed piezoelectric material for monitoring the substrate.

16 . The method of claim 15 , wherein said forming comprising providing the piezoelectric material with a given thickness.

17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein said providing comprises one of three-dimensional (3D) printing, molding, or thermal pressing the piezoelectric material according to thickness criteria specifying the given thickness for the piezoelectric material.

18 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the defined properties include one of a thickness, an elasticity, a porosity, a composition, a density, and/or a shape of the piezoelectric material.

19 . The method of claim 15 , wherein said constructing the transducer comprises incorporating first and second electrodes, such that the piezoelectric material is between the first electrode and the second electrode.

20 . The method of claim 15 , wherein said constructing the transducer comprises incorporating at least one of a backing material and an acoustic matching layer.