 Hi everybody, my name is Konstantin Davy and I'm a field application engineer at USound. In this presentation we will cover a new application of MEMS microspeakers that allows for maximum freedom for the industrial design of free field loudspeakers. By using flexible parts one can design loudspeaker shapes previously thought impossible. First a few words about the company USound. We at USound develop acoustic solutions based on MEMS technology. We have developed Ganymed, which is the first commercially available MEMS loudspeaker. It comes in two versions, Akhilos and ADAP, which are optimized for India and free field applications respectively. USound was founded in 2014 and received private and public funding. Right from the beginning USound has had a strong IP portfolio with 29 patent families filed. Since we are a fabulous company we have partnerships with manufacturing and R&D partners like STM and Flex. In 2018 we also signed a deal with 3node acoustic link, where we are doing our mass production. By that time we have had over 150 patent applications pending. This year a subsidiary company called Fauna launched the first B2C product, which is an audio Iver product. Now how does a MEMS loudspeaker work and how is it different from a traditional electro-dynamic loudspeaker? Unlike conventional loudspeakers, which rely on the electro-dynamic principle, MEMS loudspeakers rely on piezoelectricity, although they have very little in common with the piezo quartz buzzers that you might be familiar with. Piezoelectric crystals move when an electric voltage is applied. This allows us to make a cantilever that translates voltage into movement. By taking multiple cantilevers we can use them to move a piston up and down. This assembly is very thin, essentially as thin as a silicon layer and directly replaces the traditional big and heavy voice coil and magnet of a conventional loudspeaker. Adding a diaphragm on top of the assembly closes the acoustic short circuit and radiates the sound. There are numerous advantages to using MEMS loudspeakers, as their performance and small form factor makes them one of the most versatile transducers on the market. MEMS loudspeakers allow industrial designers more freedom to come up with unique devices. When used in an array, they allow for the creation of precise directivity patterns. Due to batch processing and fully automated manufacturing processes, part-to-part variation is the lowest in the audio industry. MEMS loudspeakers comply with international reliability standards to ensure robustness and stable performance over the whole product lifetime. MEMS loudspeakers can be used in multiple applications. Their small size obviously makes them predestined for India headphones, such as one of our reference designs seen on the left, which is a USB-C earphone, and of course also for true wireless earbuds. The small footprint is also an advantage for audio glasses, be it VR glasses, AR glasses or Bluetooth-enabled audio Ivor, like the founder glasses seen here. We also designed a concept for 3D headphones with multiple loudspeakers on different locations within the earcup to get actual, real surround sound. This again becomes possible due to the small size of our speakers. But what I'm here to talk about today is another application using MEMS loudspeakers on loudspeaker products in unique shapes. One approach that is more conventional is to use a fixed array of MEMS loudspeakers. In our Proteus One reference design, we used 40 of our ADEP MEMS loudspeakers. ADEP is the version that is optimized for free-field as opposed to in-ear applications, and we have added a horn to it and paired it with an 8-inch woofer to create a typical two-way hi-fi loudspeaker, and it benefits from the extremely precise high-frequency reproduction of our MEMS loudspeakers. After Proteus One, we were a little more daring. The Proteus Two reference design really showcases the benefits of using small MEMS loudspeakers. It is still a two-way system with a 3-inch woofer inside the grey box on the bottom, and MEMS loudspeakers used as tweeters. But due to the small size of the tweeters, there is no actual need to conform to conventional form factors, which is why our industrial designer was able to come up with this abstract design. Inside the three main tubes, there are 20 MEMS loudspeakers each. All in all, there are 60 MEMS loudspeakers, and the sound is radiated in 360 degrees in all directions. The assembly of the tubes is very simple due to our flexible array, which we will see on the next slide. Diona is the heart of our Proteus Two loudspeaker. It is our reference design for a mechanically flexible array of MEMS loudspeakers. Each loudspeaker has its own small box for the acoustic back volume, and is directly mounted onto a flexible PCB that can be bent and twisted. This allows for unparalleled design freedom, and truly makes MEMS loudspeakers the LED of acoustics. Here you can see just how flexible the array really is. As you can imagine, this allows for numerous applications where function follows form and gives the industrial designers much more freedom. As just one example, the Diona MEMS speaker array can be mounted on a lamp or other household devices without compromising the aesthetics or creating acoustic blind spots. The Diona soundstripe comes in two versions. The first one we call Diona Maxi. It is a single array of 20 loudspeakers driven by an external amplifier. We are also working on a second version, which we will call Diona Mini. This will be an array with five loudspeakers and an integrated amplifier built into one segment. And multiple segments can be connected together to create arrays of different lengths to suit every application. This is our Diona Maxi array. It consists of 20 ADAP MEMS loudspeakers on one flexible PCB stripe. It has a wide bandwidth from 2 kHz up to 20 kHz, and its lightweight construction is inherently protected from mechanical damage. Due to the working principle of the loudspeakers, there is no magnetic field emission and also no noteworthy heat generation either. This array is powered by an external amplifier, as seen in the middle of the picture here. As I mentioned before, we are also working on a version with an integrated amplifier. This will be out around January. On our website you can find more information about Diona and our other products. You will find all datasheets, step files, lumped parameter models, handling and unboxing guides of the MEMS loudspeakers themselves, and user guides for our development kits. If you have any more questions about this specific application or other ways to use our loudspeakers, or if you want to know more about our MEMS loudspeakers themselves, please write us an email or give me a call. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Thank you and goodbye.