SAR Insight & Consulting Forecast: MEMS is the Future of Headphones

Emitters based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology in the near future will be able to squeeze traditional speakers, armature or planar emitters in miniature devices – this is the opinion of market analysts from SAR Insight & Consulting. MEMS systems are more promising due to their small size and high energy efficiency, they said.

This is a really good technology for very small devices. In MEMS, the emitter is combined with an ASIC. Manufacturing is easy to automate because the entire module is “printed” together. Over the past 10 years, piezoelectric emitters that are excellent for MEMS have been improved.

“It looks like 2021 will be the year of MEMS acoustic devices,” said Peter Cooney, author of SAR Insight & Consulting. “Leading companies in the sector are starting to mass produce their latest products. We can already see that the average selling price per unit of output decreases as production increases. ”

The mass appearance of MEMS headphones is predicted already this year. Then, apparently, the technology will gradually conquer adjacent markets. Mass adoption in at least three sectors, according to Cooney, will occur by 2023. The existing limitations of MEMS technology, according to SAR Insight & Consulting, will be largely overcome in the next five years.