Page 6 - EETimes Europe June 2021

6 EE|Times EUROPE

COVER STORY

How Excellent MEMS

Microphones Turn Laptops

into Communication Systems

BY JULIAN KORNPROBST, Product Marketing Specialist, and
SOMU GOSWAMI, Technical Marketing Specialist, Infineon Technologies AG

The pandemic has shown that virtual meetings are often perfectly adequate. But for
the experience to come close to real face-to-face, a lot still needs to change in terms of
quality, especially in audio. Infineon has investigated how much quality is influenced
by the properties of the MEMS microphones used.

he requirements for microphones ing, users want the experience to be as close and high-fidelity transmission in a wide vari-
in consumer devices have increased as possible to actual encounters. This depends ety of situations and conditions. But the end
significantly — and not only for con- above all on perfect audio quality, and this audio quality relies a lot on the quality of the
T ference systems (Figure 1). People should preferably be achieved without addi- microphone. Or to put it in plain speak: “Bad
also want to make high-quality calls in noisy tional devices, i.e., without headphones. input, bad output.”
environments — on the street, in crowds, in High-quality audio applications require Good microphones have been around for a
an open-plan office. They expect features like a combination of good hardware and good long time but have mostly been confined to
active noise canceling (ANC), voice control, software. Algorithms such as noise reduction, audio recording studios. These microphones
and transparent hearing, which require more de-reverberation, beamforming, and direction are large and expensive, whereas microphones
and better microphones. For video conferenc- of arrival detection enable audio recording for use in consumer equipment have to be

Figure 1: MEMS microphones determine the audio quality of communication systems.

JUNE 2021 | www.eetimes.eu