xMEMS Launches Montara Monolithic Piezo-MEMS Speaker

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.

Austrian microspeaker company USound has just received an additional equity tranche increasing the last financing round to $30 million. According to the company, these added funds will accelerate the evolution of the next MEMS microspeaker generation, with the potential to boost the battery life of wireless earbuds and other wearable devices up to 12 hours. USound hopes to enable a market transition from electrodynamic drivers to solid-state technology with the next-generation of its Ganymede piezoelectric MEMS.

STMicroelectronics and USound, an innovative and fast-growing audio company from Austria, have delivered the first silicon micro-speakers resulting from their technology collaboration, announced early 2017. The two companies confirmed that they are ready to enter volume production, engineering samples are now with lead customers, and trade demonstrations will take place during CES 2018, in Las Vegas.