Founded in January 2018, California-based xMEMS Labs continues to quickly expand its range of MEMS speaker drivers targeting the requirements of multiple consumer electronics devices. The company designed the world’s first monolithic MEMS speaker, was already granted 34 patents, and holds over 100 patents pending for its technology. With Montara now in production in partnership with TSMC and already selected for upcoming true wireless earbuds design, complemented with the company's companion Aptos Class-H piezo audio driver IC. xMEMS is now targeting even smaller and lower power applications.
Following the recent introduction of Cowell, it's smallest model, targeting the replacement of balanced armature drivers in true wireless earbuds and hearing aid designs, xMEMS Labs now unveiled the latest Tomales MEMS tweeter microspeaker with top and side-firing package options in a 1mm-thin profile. This new MEMS tweeter features a novel "bascule" design, allowing more opening, to gain additional displacement (higher SPL) in a smaller die size. These SPL levels also pave the way for interesting free-field applications in devices such as conference speakers and laptops.
In free-air at 3cm, Tomales delivers 75dB SPL at 2kHz, 90dB at 4kHz and over 108dB at 10kHz. Tomales also implements xMEMS’ 2nd generation M2 speaker cell architecture offering improved SPL/mm2 enabling increased loudness in smaller form factors. These MEMS microspeakers can be used to form arrays, enabling Tomales to work as a wideband tweeter in more applications. For CES 2022, xMEMS created an experimental application of a 2-cell Tomales in a 16-chip array as a free-field tweeter in a 2-way (woofer/tweeter) desktop speaker application!
"Producing high-quality audio in thin form factors such as eyeglass frames can be challenging. It is difficult for a single speaker to produce acceptable low-end bass response while also delivering clear vocals and rich instrumentals," says Mike Housholder, xMEMS VP of Marketing and Business Development. "Tomales is ideal for 2-way woofer-tweeter implementations where it’s small size and thin profile deliver impressive treble clarity, presence and brilliance to speech, vocals and instrumentals that has been lacking in current generation smart glasses and xR headset products."
As with all xMEMS µspeakers, Tomales is a monolithic architecture implementing both actuation and diaphragm in silicon resulting in unmatched part-to-part frequency response consistency and reducing speaker matching or calibration time at manufacturing.
Tomales samples and evaluation kits are available now for select customers, with mass production expected in Q2 2022. Tomales is available in both top-firing (6.05 x 8.4 x 1.15mm) and side-firing (6.05 x 1.15 x 8.4mm) LGA packages, and is also paired with the xMEMS Aptos Class-H audio amplifier (1.92 x 1.92 x 0.6mm WLCSP).
www.xmems.com
