CEO of Akustica discusses MEMS mics

MEMS microphones are becoming increasingly popular with manufacturers of consumer electronics.  We recently spoke with the CEO of Akustica Jim Rock and VP Marketing Davin Yuknis. 

MEMS Investor Journal:       Among Akustica’s main products are MEMS based microphones.  From a technological perspective, what are the main advantages of MEMS microphones as compared to the ones currently used by manufacturers? 

Jim Rock:  The obvious benefit of MEMS mics over standard Electret Condenser Microphones (ECMs) is a smaller, thinner package that is fully compatible with automated pick-and-place manufacturing equipment. For manufacturers of mobile phones, PCs, video cameras, medical products, automobiles and a wide range of other applications, MEMS mics offer many advantages over the ECMs such as small size, surface mount, design for automated assembly, low power, low vibration sensitivity (vs. the standard ECM) as well as integrated RF filtering capacitors.

MIJ: Could you also comment on costs?

Davin Yuknis: Today's MEMS mics are priced to be component cost competitive with traditional microphone solutions with total replacement cost of $0.40-$0.55.  The additional customer cost improvement occurs on the manufacturing floor since surface mount devices can use automatic pick and place equipment, thereby increasing assembly yield and production throughput.

MIJ:  Have you had discussions with cell phone manufacturers and what has their feedback been with respect to MEMS based microphones?  Have any of them integrated a MEMS microphone into their products?

Jim Rock:  Feedback from cell phone OEMs has been overwhelmingly positive.  Many of the top 10 have already implemented a MEMS microphone into multiple platforms.  MEMS mic shipments this year will approach 75Mu.

MIJ:  How large is the overall market for microphones today?

Jim Rock:  Estimates range from 1.2-1.5 billion mics.

MIJ:  Have you been doing business in China?  If so, what has your experience been?  Can you share some stories?

Jim Rock:  We are engaged with many (impossible to reach all) cell phone and PC manufacturers in China.  While they present a significant market for our product, their focus, in general, has been in the low-end, commodity space.  This is fine for selling lots of components at reduced margins, but we believe our CMOS MEMS platform is much more than a commodity play.

Comments

[Li Gang]

According to the report, the die size of akustica is 3*3mm, which is too large and cost too much and cannot compete with traditional ECM on the cost. Besides, akustica use DRIE to etch through the whole wafer to improve microphone performance, while DRIE cost much.
Therefore, akuscita's microphone can only aims to high margin application. For cost sensitive low end mobile phone application, akustica's integrated microphone has little advantages than the compititors. Just personal view.

[Davin Yuknis]

While we are impressed with Dr. Li's interest in our technology, we found most of his information is quite dated. New technology development moves quickly, and old assumptions are quickly thrown out or disproved. Much has changed with our products since the time the white papers were written, and many of his arguements do not apply.