xMEMS Confirms Montara MEMS Microspeakers Are Now in Production

October 12 2021, 00:35
xMEMS Labs confirmed that its first monolithic MEMS µspeaker, Montara, is now in production. Working closely with TSMC as its semiconductor foundry partner, the Montara design has passed all required performance and reliability qualifications and has already been selected by manufacturers for future products. The Santa Clara, California-based company confirms that the Montara was already selected for an upcoming true wireless earbuds design.
 

Founded in January 2018, xMEMS Labs is dedicated to designing advanced solutions and applications with MEMS technology for a range of consumer electronics devices. The company designed the world’s first monolithic True MEMS speaker, was already granted 34 patents, and holds over 100 patents pending for its technology.

Inventec Appliances Corp (IAC) announced that their own brand, Chiline, will be the first to take advantage of Montara MEMS microspeakers to achieve the highest performance in their new flagship product, the Chiline TR-X TWS Earbuds. Inventec plans to introduce the Chiline TR-X starting in March 2022. These will be promoted as the world’s first TWS earbuds to use xMEMS’ Montara monolithic MEMS µspeaker and companion Aptos piezo audio driver IC to deliver impressive spatial audio performance and new levels of midrange/treble clarity and presence.

xMEMS’ Montara is the world’s first monolithic MEMS speaker - implementing both actuation and diaphragm in silicon - resulting in an unmatched level of part-to-part consistency in frequency response and phase. Montara’s fast mechanical response also results in the industry’s lowest group delay and phase shift. For manufacturers, these characteristics reduce the need for calibration and speaker matching. 

The 1mm profile, SMT-ready package and IP58 rating for dust/water simplify system design, integration, and assembly. Montara is qualified to both IEC, and the more stringent JEDEC standards for improved quality and reliability. This will allow consumers to benefit from waterproof earbud designs with improved audio fidelity.

“We are pleased to have TSMC as our strategic foundry partner and value the collaboration commercializing our True MEMS speakers with their advanced MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) technology,” says Joseph Jiang, xMEMS co-founder and CEO. “We are also thankful to IAC as a key manufacturing partner and for their vision in seeing MEMS as the future of µspeakers. We look forward to creating a legacy of successful designs with many joint OEM partners.”

“TSMC is glad to see the results of our close collaboration with xMEMS in delivery of this world’s first monolithic speaker with our MEMS technology,” adds Paul Rousseau, senior director of the Field Technical Solutions Division, TSMC North America. “TSMC has long partnered with industry innovators to extend MEMS applications from traditional motion sensing to microphone, bio-sensing, microspeaker, and medical ultrasound actuators. We will continue to make substantial efforts to develop more advanced MEMS technology to enable customers to create new products for new applications and quickly launch their product innovations to market.”

“IAC has been a key manufacturing partner to many of the innovators of TWS earbuds and we pride ourselves on being early adopters of new technologies, like MEMS µspeakers, that keep us on the leading edge,” states David Ho, president at IAC. “Starting with Chiline TR-X, we are creating a new category of hearables products with unique and premium sound quality aligned to current and future spatial audio applications while also taking advantage of improved ease-of-manufacturability, both made possible with xMEMS technology.”
www.xmems.com
 
related items