“As a globally-focused and internationally diverse company, AAC is committed to developing system-level solutions across the world, wherever talent and expertise can be leveraged,” said David Plekenpol, AAC Chief Strategy Officer and Chairman of the American & European Region. “The opening of Edinburgh strengthens our ability to continue developing innovative MEMS microphone solutions in an evolving mobile marketplace.”
With the opening of the Edinburgh office, AAC is expanding its MEMS research and development, pursuing microphones with smaller physical sizes, better signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), lower power draw, and improved ruggedness and reliability.
These attributes, along with advanced programming, enable MEMS microphones to be used in a range of new devices that offer improved keyword detection, user recognition, multi-language recognition and custom wake-up words. Optimising the signal pathway and processing is another key goal, which can result in dramatic power savings by limiting the need for a power-hungry DSP to process audio signals.
Colin Jenkins, who has an extensive career developing MEMS microphone technology, will serve as R&D Director and on-site lead for the group.
“Our team brings more than 40 years of MEMS experience to AAC, a company that is already very well established in the field,” explained Jenkins. “The combination of our experience and AAC’s market knowledge and long-term commitment to the industry will result in some very exciting product developments. Furthermore, as one of the UK’s top technology hubs, Edinburgh offers us a wealth of university lab access and the opportunity to recruit top-tier local talent with extensive MEMS expertise.”
The new centre is intended to strategically position AAC to continue to lead the industry as a wave of voice-controlled artificial intelligence applications increasingly become central to the smartphone and mobile user experience.
AAC is a leading provider of MEMS microphones for smartphones and is well positioned to address the growing use and value of the technology in a range of devices – from smartphones with multi-mic arrays to smart light bulbs with on-board voice control.
The company's existing suite of MEMS microphone solutions is currently used by leading OEMs such as Amazon, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo. AAC Technologies (Scotland) Ltd. joins AAC R&D centers currently located in China, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the United States.
