Infineon’s IM69D128S MEMS Microphone is High Performance in a Small Package At Its Core

Infineon Technologies has announced a new MEMS microphone, the IM69D128S, that can revolutionize both the sound quality and battery life of audio-centric wearables and hearing aids as we know them.

Engineers of the tech company have made use of advanced MEMS technology and circuit designs to come up with a PDM (pulse density modulation) microphone that is the IM69D128S. Said microphone is designed to be used for applications and devices that require a high signal-to-noise ratio, low microphone self-noise, and most importantly, long battery life.

With that said, the engineers of Infineon Technologies created the IM69DI128S microphone module to be a combination of MEMS and ASIC with a tiny size of 3.5 mm x 2.65 mm x 0.98.

As shared by Anastasiia Tyshchenko, the Product Manager for Consumer Sensors at Infineon, the IM69D128S MEMS microphone was designed and created with miniaturization, shrinking power consumption, and boosting performance in mind. With that said, the MEMS microphone of Infineon can be used for a variety of applications where prolonged battery life is needed, both wireless and wired products.

The MEMS microphone has a power consumption of 520 μA and an SNR of 69 dB(A), which is by far the tech company’s highest-performing mic yet. There’s also a “seamless power switching mode on microphone level”, which allows users to switch power modes as needed without the concern of any hearable artifacts.

The MEMS portion of the IM69D128S is also durable and well-protected. It makes use of a sealed dual membrane, which is the tech company’s latest proprietary. With such a design, a sealed low-pressure cavity with a differential output signal was created.

“The architecture enables ultra-high SNR, very low distortions, and enables high ingress protection (IP57) against water and dust at a microphone level”, shares Tyshchenko.

With regard to the ASIC, the IM69D128S makes use of the digital ASIC ICD82 for the core of its design. This helps create a charged pump to charge the stator. Differential connectivity between the MEMS unit and the ASIC is then created. This enables a programmable gain amplifier to help amplify varying signals from the differing membranes.

“Those signals are forwarded to the power-optimized 4-bit sigma-delta ADC”, says Tyshchenko. Lastly, a power mode detector is also enabled by the IM69D128S, which is controlled by the dock. There is also a flag pin that can be used to switch when one needs a different power mode. As per Tyshchenko, this will allow the power consumption to be reduced and still maintain high SNR values.

“Increased performance means studio quality sound expectations for the consumer domain. There’s also (an) exploration of new use cases in medical and industrial branches”, says Tyshchenko. This statement affirms just how new products such as the IM69D128S can further improve varying devices such as hearing aids, microphones, and more.