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Based in Santa Barbara, Innovative Micro Technology (IMT) is one of the leading MEMS foundries. We recently spoke with John Foster, the CEO of the company. In the interview, he talks about his company’s recent projects as well as some general trends in the MEMS industry.
by Dr. Richard Dixon, Wicht Technologie Consulting
Silicon micromachined microphones have recently begun to emerge as a competitor technology to the electret condenser microphone (ECM), a device first developed by Bell Labs way back in the 1960s. Today, MEMS microphones amount to just tens of millions of units, but by 2009 will have carved out an estimated $500 million piece of the $2 billion total market for microphones — on average every third microphone will be based on MEMS.
While companies like Panasonic dominate the manufacture of electret microphones, a handful of companies such as market leader Knowles Acoustics and recent entrants, Sonion and Akustica, are supplying this hot market with analog and digital MEMS microphones for mobile phones, notebooks, and consumer products with audio input such as video recorders, digital cameras, dictation devices, and PDAs, in fact, any device requiring an audio input.
