Edge artificial intelligence vendor Syntiant Corp. has signed an agreement to acquire assets of Knowles Corp.’s consumer microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microphones business.
Under the deal, Syntiant will offer integrated AI solutions combining its hardware and software AI machine learning models with Knowles’ MEMS microphones. This is likely to be for edge AI applications that require always-on audio and speech recognition.
Syntiant said it will pay $150 million in cash and stock for the MEMS business with the transaction expected to close by the fourth quarter of this year, pending regulatory approvals and closing conditions.
Knowles’ MEMS microphones are used for voice and audio applications in smartphones, smart speakers and wearables as well as automotive and smart home devices.
MEMS in AI devices
MEMS microphones play a role in AI edge devices due to their advanced audio processing capabilities. With a compact size, they can easily be integrated into smartphones, smart speakers, internet of things (IoT) devices and other solutions.
Additionally, these MEMS microphones allow for clear audio capture, which is a critical need for AI applications such as voice recognition and language processing.
Other benefits include:
- Real-time audio input for smart home edge devices.
- Improved energy consumption compared to traditional microphones.
- Beamforming and noise cancellation to further enhance audio quality in noisy environments.
- Collect data for AI training.
It is likely Syntiant will look to integrate these MEMS microphones into AI hardware modules for any edge application from IoT devices to wearables to smart speakers. By combining MEMS microphones with AI algorithms in a hardware module, these noise suppression, beamforming and sound localization benefits can be implemented.
