News

Digital Speakers with Lower Power Consumption than Class-D or A/B get C-Series Funding

April 12, 2018 by Paul Shepard

Trigence, a leading supplier of Digital Speakers to the PC and handheld consumer markets has closed its Series C financing, which was led by MIYAKO Capital with participation from existing investors including Intel Capital.

This brings the pioneers of direct digital drive speakers' total funding to over $20 million, and will help Trigence accelerate further adoption of its Digital Speaker Modules as the leader in audio fidelity for portable devices.

"Trigence's ground-breaking work in the field of Digital Speakers is delivering the benefits of simplified architectures and power supply requirements, longer battery life and improved audio experiences," said Pete Birch, President and CEO of Trigence, a Tokyo headquartered company.

"Customers can now utilize a single component that connects direct to the host processor, and fully optimizes the audio quality across the electro-mechanical boundaries of the acoustic system, in order to deliver improvements in the end user experience.

"Traditionally the transducer and driving electronics in the audio subsystem were designed independently with little knowledge of the other component. Digital Speakers offer a new paradigm where all elements are designed in concert for the best possible auditory performance.

"Digital Speakers not only deliver better quality audio, but also reduce active power consumption over legacy solutions. Going forward, we are now also looking to incorporate microphones into our speakers, to open up the possibility for true Edge-AI Audio Interface Modules (AiMTM).

"These solutions will minimize power consumption by allowing the rest of the system to be in deep sleep, with only the Edge-AI functionality active until necessary. Think of it as a full function miniaturized smart-speaker on the periphery of the system", continued Birch.

"Intel Capital is committed to investing in innovative companies like Trigence that are creating the technologies inside smart and connected devices to power data explosion," said Anthony Lin, Vice President of Intel Capital and Managing Director of Greater Asia and Europe. "We look forward to continuing to support Trigence in developing IA-based products that deliver the best user experiences along with improved efficiency and functionalities."

Based on Trigence's patented Dnote® processing technology, Digital Speakers unlock the many benefits of using multiple voice-coils within a transducer. The voice coils are driven using only digital logic, with the transducer itself operating as a high-quality D-to-A converter. This means that High- Resolution audio performance is maintained throughout the signal path from source direct to the listener.

"We are extremely pleased to be able to lead Trigence's Series C financing round," commented Tsunesaburo Sugaya, Managing Director and Partner with MIYAKO Capital. "The work Trigence has done in this field is innovation at its best. We hope that, along with the other investors, we can work to aid them in substantially growing their business to become the dominant player in consumer audio. The company has immense knowledge, not only of digital audio, but uniquely of the whole acoustic system."

Both Supreme Electronics Co., Ltd. and MIRAI SOUZOU (Innovation and Future Creation Inc.) were also participants in this funding round.