June 4, 2007 — Akustica, Inc. says it has developed the world’s smallest microphone. At 1mm x 1mm, Akustica’s microphone, which integrates the transducer and electronics into a single silicon die, is more than 70% smaller in silicon area than competing products.

Akustica says its technology, in which both the transducer and the electronics are fabricated using standard, baseline CMOS, has enabled the miniaturization. The company reports that this tight integration offers such performance advantages as reduced parasitic capacitance effects – which, in turn, enables smaller mechanical components.

Competitive MEMS microphone products use two separate die — a sensor interface die that contains the circuitry, and a MEMS microphone die that contains the mechanical microphone structure.

The form factor simplifies packaging. And, while performance will vary depending on the package, the microphone promises a typical signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 58dB, a power supply rejection ratio (PSRR) of 40dB, and less than 200µA current consumption.

“There are no other MEMS fabrication technologies that can scale the way we can in terms of manufacturing capacity and decreasing die size,” said Dr. Ken Gabriel, Akustica’s CTO and co-founder.