SensiBel MEMS Microphone Heads to Silex Production

The sensiBel MEMS microphone is moving towards higher-volume production through a supply-chain relationship with Silex Microsystems, the Swedish pure-play MEMS foundry. The Norwegian optical MEMS sensing company announced the manufacturing relationship on 4 May 2026, saying Silex will manufacture the MEMS element for its high-SNR digital microphone platform.

The device combines a conventional ASIC and MEMS sensor with a precision optical measurement module that tracks movement of the diaphragm. sensiBel says this arrangement gives the platform an 80 dB signal-to-noise ratio, 146 dB SPL acoustic overload point and 132 dB dynamic range. The company is pitching those figures at applications where small microphones have to capture cleaner audio, from conferencing systems and laptops to automotive and pro-audio equipment.

The deal also marks a continuation of sensiBel’s scale-up effort. As previously reported by eeNews Europe when SensiBel raised €15 million to ramp production, the company’s approach uses a laser and integrated interferometer to measure motion of a silicon membrane, rather than relying only on a capacitive readout.

Silex is based in Järfälla, near Stockholm, and describes itself as the leading pure-play MEMS foundry. The company has more than 400 employees and manufactures devices that combine mechanical and electronic functions for customers in sectors including medical technology, cloud services and autonomous vehicles. Its ownership changed in 2025, when a Swedish consortium led by Bure Equity and Creades took a majority stake, while Sai Microelectronics retained a minority holding.

sensiBel’s first product family, SBM100B, supports PDM, I²S and TDM8 digital interfaces in a surface-mount, reflow-solderable bottom-port package. The device was launched at Sensors Converge 2025, and the company is using this year’s Sensors Converge event in Santa Clara to show automotive and professional audio applications, including an A2B microphone module for context awareness, acoustic event detection and road-noise cancellation.

For electronics manufacturers, the significance is less the claim of studio quality on its own than the attempt to put that performance into a MEMS supply chain that can scale. Optical detection is still the differentiator, but Silex gives the project a manufacturing partner whose business is moving advanced MEMS devices from process development to production.