Microphone Applications

To address their increasing focus on voice-input quality, smartphone manufacturers are integrating multiple MEMS microphones and noise cancellation algorithms into each smartphone to achieve improved noise suppression and speech recognition. These algorithms rely on well matched, high performance microphones to deliver optimum performance to the end user. Smartphones are also often used in loud or windy environments, necessitating the need for microphones that are capable of listening to high sound levels without distorting or cutting out.  Additionally, microphones with higher acoustic performance can significantly improve the quality of sound recordings made with mobile devices. This is particularly evident when one is making a recording of a quiet or distant sound whose signal level approaches the inherent noise level of the microphone.

 

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More people are using their laptops for real time communication and voice recognition applications than ever before. These applications require the same high SNR and tightly matched sensitivity and phase that are needed in smart phones to achieve optimum noise suppression and speech recognition accuracy. In addition, these bigger devices have a longer audio trace from the microphone to the CODEC and as a result, benefit greatly from the use of digital-output microphones that deliver an audio signal that is immune to corruption from the device’s internal RF/EM interference.

MEMS microphones have also become increasingly important for use in wearable applications such as headsets, smart watches, and virtual/augmented reality goggles which typically rely on voice as a key user interface. These space-constrained, battery-operated devices bring a new challenge to microphone suppliers to deliver smaller, lower power microphones that still maintain their high level of acoustic performance.