NXP Introduces MiGLO Platform – Smartest Hearable Solutions on the Market

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands, Dec. 20, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ:NXPI), in collaboration with its customers and partners, is steering a new breed of earbuds into the market featuring MiGLO technology in NXP’s family of hearable solutions. NXP MiGLO represents our bold commitment and promise to deliver long battery life, exceptional audio quality and reliable wireless experiences while enabling development of small and comfortable truly wireless earbuds or hearables.

The first MiGLO solutions to hit the market provide ultra-low power ear-to-ear communication using Near Field Magnetic Induction (NFMI), enabling truly wireless stereo audio streaming.

“NXP has been providing proprietary NFMI technology to the hearing instrument industry for nearly a decade,” said Asit Goel, senior vice president and general manager at NXP. “NFMI has proven to be a reliable and safe solution to wirelessly stream audio and data ear-to-ear in a medical product that is extremely demanding in terms of power consumption and solution size.”

“As the smartest hearable solution on the market, NXP’s NFMI-based advanced integration makes designing affordable hearables with state-of-the-art capabilities more accessible,” said Paul Teich, principal analyst at TIRIAS Research. “The hearable solution combines unique bits of technology that save power while enabling a leap in user experience.”

Excellent Audio Quality with No “Dropouts”

NXP MiGLO solutions are designed for high quality wearable audio applications. The MiGLO brand represents uncompromised audio quality at almost no power consumption. This includes a perfect wireless connection (to avoid drop-outs), low latency audio transport (to maintain lip sync) and tightly controlled left and right (L/R) audio synchronization (to maintain the stereo image).

“Skybuds are the pioneer in using NFMI in earbuds, we want to offer our customers the gold-standard in audio quality with uncompromised connection. With NXP MiGLO featured in our Skybuds, we are confident we are delivering on this promise,” said Jamie Roberts Seltzer, CEO and co-founder, Alpha Audiotronics. “We chose NXP because they’re also innovators and can meet our quality standards. But just as importantly, we share a similar vision with NXP – to deliver uncompromising audio – and that’s important to our customers.”

Earbuds that go Beyond Taking Calls and Listening to Music

“We needed a proven solution to handle the unique constraints and requirements of building an in-ear computer, and NXP’s track record as an industry leader in NFMI made them a natural choice,” said Noah Kraft, CEO and Co-founder at Doppler Labs. “With Here One, we’ve built a first-of-its-kind product that does much more than just stream music, and NXP proved to be the perfect partner, helping to ensure MiGLO works seamlessly, not only in and of itself, but also within our overall system architecture.”

“Thanks to NXP MiGLO our earbuds have the potential to be smarter with features more commonly associated with computers, not headsets,” said David Cannington, Co-Founder at Nuheara. “Nuheara’s new earbuds featuring MiGLO offer advanced speech amplification and dynamic noise control – opening the door to new applications and user experiences that can run on earbuds.”

Longer Battery Run Time

Today’s NFMI based MiGLO solutions are capable of streaming high quality audio ear-to-ear at less than 4mW. NXP aims to enable uninterrupted audio listening for a full day from a small battery without recharging.

“We adopted NXP’s technology to deliver flawless audio streaming at lowest power consumption in The Dash. Our upcoming product, ‘The Headphone’, will use NFMI as well to support high quality audio listening for up to six hours,” said Nikolaj Hviid, Bragi CEO.

Smaller Size for Better Fit

MiGLO solutions are available in Wafer Level Chip Scale Package (WLCSP), requiring a minimum of external components. NXP MiGLO solutions are specifically optimized for wireless earbud applications, reducing the size of the end product. NXP MiGLO NFMI solutions are smaller than 11 mm². With MiGLO solutions’ low power consumption, the earbud battery can be significantly smaller for the same battery life. Unlike other wireless solutions, NFMI is designed to work accurately even if earbuds get smaller in future.

For more information about MiGLO technology and products, please visit www.nxp.com/miglo.