New MEMS Microspeakers Company Getting Ready to Take Off

Myvox is the name of the latest Swedish venture to get into the emerging and highly promising MEMS microspeakers space. As a differentiator, Myvox draws on the team's experience developing what they call "pure MEMS microspeakers" to promise advancements in audio quality, more than just purely focusing on the economies of scale of a "speaker-in-a-chip". Very close to start sampling, Myvox promises superior sound performance on a better form factor.

Austrian MEMS piezoelectric microspeaker specialist USound announced an agreement with Luxshare-ICT, one of the largest manufacturers and supplier for global consumer electronics brands. Luxshare-ICT chose USound as its strategical MEMS speaker supplier for its new ultra-compact hybrid audio module intended to power next-generation innovative dual-driver true wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds. The new Luxshare-ICT audio TWS solution will be in mass production in 2023.

Mike Klasco writes about xMEMS Piezo Microspeakers. How Piezo MEMS Address Development Challenges to Combine the Compact, Consumer-Friendly Form Factor of TWS With Hearing Assistance Features Into a Single Product. How Piezoelectric MEMS Microspeakers devices promise to enhance OTC hearing augmentation solutions, increasing comfort, while adding features and extending battery life. This article was originally published in The Audio Voice newsletter, June 3, 2021 (#330)

Following a year of private demonstrations of its novel MEMS speaker design, xMEMS Labs is now coming out of stealth mode with is first piezo-MEMS speaker. Montara is the name for what the company claims to be "the world’s first true MEMS speaker," using a monolithic process that eliminates calibration and driver matching, and is SMT-ready. Montara also offers full-bandwidth (20Hz-20kHz), and is fully water, dust and shock resistant.

In this article for Voice Coil focused on MEMS loudspeakers, Mike Klasco reviews a bit of the history of the technology and previews the evolution and impact on the audio industry in general. The article examines MEMS devices in general, provides a basic explanation of how the various types of MEMS speakers work, and what commercialization challenges are ahead. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2019.