Coffee & Chips Friday

While capacitive MEMS microphones revolutionised consumer electronics in the early 2000s, that technology has hit a performance limit that only a change in architecture can overcome. 

Standard capacitive designs rely on a backplate with thousands of small holes, which creates noise from air movement known as "squeeze film damping“. This restricts today's best digital microphones to a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 73 dB, leaving audio performance lagging far behind the high-fidelity 8K video quality found in modern smartphones.

This presentation introduces sensiBel’s SBM100B, the first optical MEMS microphone to break the barriers inherent in the capacitive MEMS architecture. sensiBel achieves this advancement by replacing traditional capacitive sensing with laser-optical interferometry. Developed from over 20 years of research at SINTEF, the SBM100B’s architecture utilizes a laser-optical subsystem consisting of a VCSEL, a photodetector, and a Diffractive Optical Element (DOE). By eliminating the backplate, sensiBel achieves a breakthrough performance of 80 dB SNR (14 dBA noise floor), a 146 dB Acoustic Overload Point (AOP), and a 132 dB dynamic range. This electroacoustic combination  enables true studio-quality audio in a miniature, surface-mount package suitable for everything from smartphones to professional conferencing systems

As a small but growing company of 30 employees, sensiBel values the collaboration that we’ve enjoyed with graduate students. These students work at a deep technical level, ranging from component-level MEMS screening to product-level microphone testing. By handling essential repetitive tasks and testing around the clock, they relieve our engineering team, allowing senior staff to focus on core development.

Beyond technical R&D, graduate students have provided commercial value through A/B testing against competitors, even validating our technology’s competitive advantages in AI and speech recognition. We find that these "hungry" and interested students bring fresh methods from the university into our workflows. Some start as summer interns or part-time employees and eventually transition into permanent full-time roles, allowing us to shape talent specifically to our needs.

The presentation is held by Anna Stray Rongve, Marketing Manager, sensiBel

Hosted by CC-NorChip / SINTEF, University of Oslo and Forskningsparken.

Previous speakers:

• Philipp Häfliger, Professor at the University of Oslo, Research Group for Nanoelectronic systems

• Thomas Ramberg, Dory and Tobias Dahl, SINTEF

• Linn Fagerberg, managing director at Electronic Coast in Horten

• Vegard Standeren Olsen og Ralph Bernstein, CC-NorChip

• Ingelin Clausen, CEO InVivo Binonics

• Lasse Irvam og Preben Storås, grunnleggere Optronics Technology

• Elizaveta Vereshchagina, seniorforsker ved SINTEF, BreathSense

• Henrik Hovde Sønsteby, førsteamanuensis ved UiO, CONCEPT

About CC-NorChip:

The competence center CC-NorChip will, over the next four years, offer free support to small and medium-sized enterprises to lower the threshold for adopting advanced technology. The goal is to raise competence and competitiveness in Norway and Europe by strengthening Norwegian companies’ ability to utilize advanced technologies and capacities both nationally and internationally.

CC-NorChip is a collaboration between SINTEF, NTNU, the University of Oslo (UiO), the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), the University of Tromsø (UiT), and Electronic Coast, with support from, among others, the EU and the Research Council of Norway.

CC-NorChip | Sikrer Norges posisjon innen avansert teknologi