According to xMEMS, Sycamore is the first full-range, all-silicon, near-field micro speaker for enjoying full-range sound from open wireless stereo (OWS) earbuds, smart watches, smart glasses, augmented/virtual reality headsets, and other compact, mobile electronics.
It is based on the company’s ‘sound from ultrasound’ platform which creates full-frequency sound from ultrasonic waves in a 1-mm thin chip.
“With Sycamore, mobile electronics can now achieve thinner, more stylish form factors while maintaining big, rich sound,” said Mike Housholder, xMEMS’ VP of Marketing and Business Development. “With better performance at both the low and high ends, Sycamore delivers powerful, full-range audio for smart watches, smart glasses, and any other small, mobile form factor that engineers dream up.”
Unlike the first-of-its-kind xMEMS Cypress µSpeaker, which delivers full-range audio for occluded, in-ear, active noise-cancelling (ANC) earbuds, Sycamore has been designed to perform in open-air listening devices.
Measuring just 1-millimetre thick, Sycamore removes a critical constraint in design of thin mobile electronics by replacing 3-mm thick legacy dynamic driver speakers, while also requiring less back volume area.
With its first-order low frequency roll-off, it can match mid-bass performance of legacy drivers while offering as much as 11dB headroom in sub-bass extension. Sycamore also pushes the performance envelope on high-frequency sound - by as much as 15dB above 5KHz over legacy drivers - making it a suitable near-field µSpeaker tweeter alternative for laptops, automotive, and portable Bluetooth speakers.
Sycamore measures just 8.41 x 9 x 1.13 mm and weighs only 150 milligrams. It is one-seventh the size of a conventional dynamic-driver package and one-third the thickness, which is critical when integrating into ever-thinner electronics like smart watches and glasses. As an all-silicon, solid-state µSpeaker, Sycamore is IP58 rated to be rugged and sweat-resistant for active users.
xMEMS Sycamore is based on the same fabrication process as the xMEMS Cypress in-ear ANC µSpeaker and the xMEMS XMC-2400 micro-cooling (µCooling) fan on a chip.
xMEMS will be sampling Sycamore in Q1, 2025, with mass production beginning October 2025.
