xMEMS has a secret weapon that makes thinner smart glasses with better audio a reality

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• xMEMS designs and manufactures tiny 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. Smartphones debut with on-device, AI-powered features, smart glasses project displays of your daily tasks, and smartwatches can help you treat a cold before you feel its wrath. However, dynamic drivers, which are inside all of these products, have remained largely unchanged over the last 100 years.

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Dynamic drivers are the small 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, tech providers like xMEMS believe that your audio experiences should be equally innovative.

Therefore, the company believes its incredibly tiny MEMS chips can replace dynamic drivers across consumer technology products, providing solutions for sound, weight, and heat management to manufacturers. I spent an hour with the company’s suite of chips, and here’s how they can upgrade your devices.

Dynamic drivers aren’t needed

A dynamic driver consists of a magnet, a voice coil, and a diaphragm, and it uses electrical signals to generate magnetic fields that move the diaphragm and coil, creating sound. Dynamic drivers are cost-effective, power-efficient, and leverage air displacement to reproduce the prominent bass response most consumers enjoy.

The downside to dynamic drivers is that they take up space and weight within your headphones and earbuds, and can often distort sounds at high volumes, struggling to maintain clarity. 

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Therefore, xMEMS’ solution is its Cowell and Sycamore solid-state microspeakers. The Cowell microchip is already in products on the market, such as the Soundpeats Air5 Pro+ and the Creative Aurvana Ace 3. The Cowell chip serves as a tweeter within these earbuds, delivering exceptional clarity at higher frequencies. The chip is driven by the company’s Aptos2 amplifier, and both pieces of hardware are nearly as small as a grain of rice.

Sycamore is a one-millimeter-thin MEMS chip, and xMEMS says the technology can entirely replace dynamic drivers in headphones. This chip is yet to appear in a product on the market, though consumers can expect to see one within the coming year. I demoed Sycamore inside a prototype pair of headphones, with one 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 into them. It adds a visceral layer to the listening experience, but can become muddied at times. With Sycamore, there is no traditional speaker configuration, no movement from magnets or coils, and no bass you can truly feel. However, you can hear the bass incredibly clearly. 

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Aside from a clearer listening experience, replacing dynamic drivers with Sycamore allows for a slimmer, thinner, and lighter pair of headphones. According to xMEMS, Sycamore weighs 18 grams, compared to the 42 grams of a dynamic driver. 

Sycamore also comes in rectangular-shaped audio chips for smartwatches and smart glasses. Although many people purchase smartwatches and smart glasses for their high-tech features, some may notice the lackluster 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, only demanding one millimeter of width within a product.

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I tested Sycamore-N in a pair of prototype smart glasses and noticed the expanded spatial sound of the speaker compared to the first-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses I often use. In an open-air environment, Sycamore-N amplifies music while preserving sonic integrity. 

The chip’s one millimeter width helps smart glasses manufacturers keep the device form factor as slim as possible. Slimness and lightness are incredibly valuable in smart glasses, especially the arms, which house speakers and chips. The sound of Sycamore-W also didn’t disappoint, reproducing a much louder and clearer audio response than my Apple Watch. 

Heat management

Alongside 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 buildup is to install a fan under the hood of these products. However, fans can be loud and might redistribute heat instead of dissipating it. For headphones, the xMEMS micro-cooling chip generates airflow into the earcup, managing heat buildup and humidity. 

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I couldn’t hear the airflow when listening to music, even at the fan’s highest setting. Unlike ear pads with cooling gel that eventually reach temperature equilibrium with your skin, the xMEMS fan-on-a-chip delivers cool air through the earcup.

For smartphones, the fan-on-a-chip promises an effective solution for heat management issues. As mobile processors become more advanced and powerful, particularly in 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 glasses processors can generate heat, creating a surface temperature of up to 65 degrees Celsius. Manufacturers can stack the xMEMS fan-on-a-chip on top of or next to the processor, allowing the surface temperature to decrease to 36 degrees Celsius.

Although many of these chips have yet to be integrated into products on the market, the demonstrations provided a sneak peek into how our devices could evolve, should manufacturers choose to use the technology.