Jannik Hammel Nielsen and Claus Furst
Analog Devices

With more than two billion microphones sold each year, the microphone market is of interest by virtue of its volume. About half of that market is for very inexpensive, low-grade microphones for the toy market and other applications where size and performance are not critical parameters. The rest of the volume is in portable, high-end applications, such as mobile phones, headsets, digital cameras, laptops, and so on. The largest players in that market are mobile-phone manufacturers, who use some 900 million devices per year. At a projected annual growth rate of 10%, mobile phones constitute the fastest-growing segment of the microphone market. Mobile phones are getting smaller while incorporating a larger number of features, calling for next-generation microphones capable of increased performance.

Reproduced with the permission of Analog Devices, Inc.