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ZDNET Highlights
- xMEMS designs and manufactures small audio and cooling chips.
- The company’s audio chips can replace entire dynamic drivers.
- Despite the innovation, manufacturer adoption is still a work in progress.
Consumer technology continues to advance every year. Smartphone on-device, AI-powered features, smart glasses project displays of your daily tasks, and smartwatches can help you treat a cold before you feel it. However, the dynamic drivers that lie inside all of these products have remained largely unchanged over the past 100 years.
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Dynamic drivers are tiny transducers inside your earbuds, headphones, smartphones, smartwatches, and smart glasses, and they use the fundamental laws of physics to deliver sound to your ears. Yet, as your devices become smarter and more powerful, technology providers like xMEMS believe your audio experience should be equally innovative.
Therefore, the company believes that its incredibly small MEMS chips can replace dynamic drivers in consumer technology products, providing manufacturers with solutions to sound, weight and heat management. I spent an hour with the company’s Chips suite and here’s how they can upgrade your device.
Dynamic drivers are not required
Bose QC Ultra (left); Bose QC Ultra 2 (right).
Jada Jones/ZDNET
A dynamic driver consists of a magnet, a voice coil, and a diaphragm, and it uses electrical signals to generate a magnetic field that moves the diaphragm and coil, producing sound. Dynamic drivers are cost-effective, power-efficient, and take advantage of air displacement to reproduce the prominent bass response preferred by most consumers.
The downside of dynamic drivers is that they take up space and weight within your headphones and earbuds, and can distort sounds at high volumes while often struggling to maintain clarity.
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Therefore, xMEMS’s solution is its Cowl and Sycamore solid-state microspeakers. The Cowell microchip is already present in the market in products like Soundpeats Air5 Pro+ and Creative Aurvana Ace 3. The Cowell chip acts as a tweeter within these earbuds, providing exceptional clarity at high frequencies. The chip is powered by the company’s Aptos2 amplifier, and both pieces of hardware are about as small as a grain of rice.
The Sycamore is a millimeter-thin MEMS chip, and XMEMS says the technology could completely replace dynamic drivers in headphones. This chip has not yet appeared in any products on the market, although consumers can expect to see it in the coming year. I demonstrated Sycamore inside a prototype pair of headphones, which had a Sycamore chip located in each earcup.
The most noticeable difference I heard was the bass response. In most headphones with solid bass reproduction, you can feel the bass deep in your ears as the speakers push air inside. This adds an intrinsic layer to the listening experience, but can sometimes be messy. With the Sycamore, there’s no traditional speaker configuration, no fuss from magnets or coils, and no bass you can actually feel. However, you can hear the bass incredibly clearly.
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In addition to the clearer listening experience, replacing the dynamic drivers with Sycamore allows for a thinner, thinner and lighter pair of headphones. According to XMEMS, the Sycamore weighs 18 grams compared to the Dynamic Driver’s 42 grams.
Sycamore also comes in rectangular-shaped audio chips for smartwatches and smart glasses. Although many people buy smartwatches and smart glasses for their high-tech features, some may look past the weak audio performance of these devices.
The xMEMS Sycamore-N and Sycamore-W audio chips have been specifically engineered for use in smart glasses and smartwatches, respectively. These Sycamore chips are still incredibly thin and compact, demanding just one millimeter of width within a product.
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I tested the Sycamore-N in a pair of prototype smart glasses and noticed the speaker’s expanded spatial sound compared to the first-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses I frequently use. In open-air environments, the Sycamore-N enhances music while preserving sonic integrity.
The chip’s one millimeter width helps smart glasses makers keep the device form factor as thin as possible. Thinness and lightness are incredibly valuable in smart glasses, especially in arms that contain speakers and chips. The Sycamore-W’s sound also didn’t disappoint, producing a louder and clearer audio response than my Apple Watch.
heat management
Along with audio chips, xMEMS also manufactures fan-on-a-chip solutions for consumer technology companies. The XMEMS team explained to me that as smartphones, smart glasses, and laptops gain advanced features, the processors inside generate more heat when performing complex tasks.
Generally, the solution to heat increase is to install a fan under the hood of these products. However, fans can be loud and redistribute heat instead of dissipating it. For the headphones, the xMEMS micro-cooling chip generates airflow in the earcups, managing heat buildup and humidity.
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I couldn’t hear air flow while listening to music, even on the fan’s highest setting. Unlike ear pads with cooling gel, which eventually reach temperature equilibrium with your skin, the XMEMS Fan-on-a-Chip delivers cool air through the earcups.
For smartphones, fan-on-a-chip promises an effective solution to heat management problems. As mobile processors become more advanced and powerful, especially when running AI-powered features, they generate more heat. The same logic applies to smart glasses, especially those equipped with laser displays. With the arms of the glasses resting on your skin, the technology needs to maintain a safe temperature.
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During my demo, the xMEMS team demonstrated how smart glass processors can generate heat, leading to surface temperatures of up to 65 degrees Celsius. Manufacturers can place the xMEMS fan-on-a-chip on top or next to the processor, reducing surface temperatures as low as 36 degrees Celsius.
Although many of these chips have not yet been integrated into products on the market, the demonstrations provided a glimpse of how our devices could evolve, should manufacturers choose to use the technology.
