TDK Corp. is choosing CES 2018 this week in Las Vegas to highlight two new products: a new ultralow-noise MEMS microphone as well as an ultralow-noise and ultralow-power MEMS capacitive barometric pressure sensor. The new products result from TDK’s May 2017 acquisition of InvenSense.
An addition to the company’s ultralow noise MEMS microphone family, the ICS-40740 delivers a 70-dB(A) SNR with 133-dB sound-pressure-level acoustic-overload point. The low self-noise coupled with wide dynamic range makes the ICS-40740 suitable for voice-controlled IoT applications, especially those with integrated loudspeakers, as well as wearable applications like noise-cancelling headsets.
A microphone’s SNR has long been recognized as a key specification to enable far-field voice capture. But as the smart-speaker market has shown, the capability of these microphones to operate in a very loud environment is also critical to enable the user to interrupt loud audio with spoken commands. The ICS-40740 performs in both demanding respects.
“TDK is pushing the limits of the audio signal chain with the ICS-40740,” said Paul Schreier, InvenSense senior director, audio marketing. “We are delivering a microphone that can perform audio capture at very great distance with complex beam-forming algorithms while simultaneously capturing high-fidelity spoken commands regardless of booming music in close proximity.”
Beyond simple SNR and dynamic range, the ICS-40740 performs across a wide frequency band, from 80 Hz to 20 kHz. The sensitivity tolerance of ±1 dB also makes it suitable for use in an array with very consistent performance from unit to unit.
Wearable noise-cancelling applications are also a fit for the ICS-40740. With a 4-mm by 3-mm by 1.2-mm package and consuming only 155 mA in operation, the ICS-40740 fits both the size and power budget of a noise-cancelling headset.
The ICS-40740 is sampling now to select customers and is slated for production in the second quarter of 2018. The ICS-40740 leverages a proven, robust supply chain for fabrication, packaging and test for smooth launch into high volume consumer applications.
MEMS barometric pressure sensor
The new InvenSense ICP-10100 ultralow-noise and ultralow-power MEMS capacitive barometric pressure sensor achieves the industry’s lowest pressure noise of 0.4 Pa RMS, attains the industry’s lowest power consumption of 1.3 µA, and ensures temperature stability with a temperature coefficient of ±0.5 Pa/°C, TDK reports.
The capacitive pressure sensor can measure small pressure differences of ±1 Pa, enabling the ICP-10100 to detect altitude changes of less than 5 cm. With a temperature coefficient of ±0.5 Pa/°C, the MEMS capacitive temperature stable pressure sensor can operate over wide temperature ranges and a variety of applications.
The combination of high accuracy, low power, temperature stability, and waterproofing in a small package footprint enables improved activity identification, mobile indoor/outdoor navigation, and altitude-hold in drones, and it extends the battery life of always-on motion sensing applications.
“InvenSense recently released the ICM-20789, the industry’s first 7-axis (3-axis accel, 3-axis gyro, 1-axis pressure) targeting the drone and wearable markets,” said Amir Panush, InvenSense vice president and general manager of the Motion and Pressure Business Unit. “The ICP-10100 expands our footprint into additional market segments of consumer electronics, IoT, and mobile–enabling our customers to achieve new use cases not possible with previous technology due to improved motion sensing capabilities.”