In 2023, researchers estimated that using generative artificial intelligence (genAI) to create a picture used as much energy as charging a smartphone. Now, imagine generating AI images together with your smartphone.
As AI shifts to edge devices like smartphones and AR glasses, essentially the most compelling and widespread applications will likely revolve around real-time, personalized, and context-aware experiences. These devices are all the time with us, so the AI can leverage their sensors – cameras, microphones, GPS, accelerometers – to deliver seamless, low-latency solutions and experiences.
Consider AI as an omnipresent sidekick providing real-time contextual assistance. On smartphones, this might mean easy language translation during conversations or travel, like pointing your camera at an indication and getting an overlay in your native tongue. For AR glasses, it’s even stickier – imagine walking through a city and having historical facts, restaurant reviews, or navigation cues projected into your view, all tailored to your interests and while not having to drag out a tool. Since edge AI processes data locally, it’s a win for trust and data privacy.
While the promise for edge AI is apparent and compelling, hardware challenges remain.
- Challenge 1 – Thermal: Similar to AI data centers, edge AI devices are thermal-limited, not MIPS/compute-limited. Smartphones are already at their thermal limits; edge AI features simply compound the issue. Same for AR glasses, as more compute, optics, and micro displays are integrated.
- Challenge 2 – Size/Weight/Form Factor: That is an unlimited challenge for AR glasses as manufacturers seek the holy grail of balancing all-day wear comfort (weight) with the vital electronics and battery life (performance) all in a fashion-first, stylish form factor.
- Challenge 3 – Conversational AI Audio Quality: Voice might be a dominant interface, particularly with AR glasses, allowing quick, hands-free operation. Nonetheless, conventional coil speakers are thick and ponderous (see Challenge 2) and don’t perform to their maximum potential in tight, constrained spaces. Further, their relatively poor part-to-part consistency negatively impacts value-add DSP features resembling privacy and conversation focus modes.
Still, the mad dash to perform genAI on edge devices – smartphones, AR glasses, and other mobile devices – is underway. Researchers at Deloitte estimate the share of genAI-enabled smartphones could exceed 30 percent of shipments by the tip of this yr. To say nothing of a brand new category of genAI-powered smart glasses.
In edge devices, a part of the answer comes from reimagining the electronics that go into them.
PiezoMEMS Components Enable GenAI on the Edge
PiezoMEMS technology addresses the challenges of genAI in edge devices. Not only due to what it does, but the way it’s made.
PiezoMEMS is an application of micro-electromechanical systems technology that uses piezoelectric materials to convert electricity into motion, essentially a voltage-controlled airflow source. PiezoMEMS components are manufactured in a reliable, stable and highly uniform semiconductor process, allowing the mass production of highly efficient, cost-effective microelectronics in small, 1-millimeter thin chip packages.
Lively Cooling for Edge AI Thermal Management
Ultrasonic piezoMEMS silicon actuators now exist to pump completely silent, vibration-free pulses of air for the aim of cooling thin, space-constrained electronics systems – mainly a fan on a chip.
The implications for cooling edge AI edge devices are profound. The primary piezoMEMS micro-cooling fan is 96 percent smaller and lighter than traditional fans – and is the one lively thermal management device small and thin enough to suit inside smartphones and AR glasses, keeping surface and component temperatures 15-30% cooler while enabling compute to run at peak performance for prolonged periods.
PiezoMEMS Loudspeakers because the Conversational AI Interface
Size and Weight: piezoMEMS loudspeakers can produce equivalent or higher loudness (sound pressure level [SPL]) as conventional coil speakers but at a fraction of the scale, thickness, and weight. Applying this latest speaker to AI-enabled glasses can get product designers closer to the holy grail balance referenced earlier in this text.
Listed below are two examples. First, at 1 millimeter thin, the piezoMEMS speaker is ~70% thinner than conventional coil speakers which allows the arms of the glasses to be thinner and more stylish.
Second, it has been suggested that the best weight of glasses is 30 grams to attain all-day wear comfort. In AI glasses, conventional coil speakers typically weigh ~2 grams each. With one in each glasses arm (4 grams total), the speakers contribute ~15% of the entire weight of the system. PiezoMEMS loudspeakers, at ~150 milligrams each, can remove >90% of the burden contributed by the speakers, bringing AR glasses closer to the 30-gram goal.
Audio Clarity. Other than its small size and weight, piezoMEMS loudspeakers enhance the audio experience. They not only generate sufficient volume within the open air, but they excel at reproducing the high frequencies typically related to improved speech intelligibility and clarity. It’s because piezoMEMS delivers a faster mechanical response than traditional speaker designs with almost no phase shift, which implies the audio is evident, detailed, and accurate.
Improved DSP features. Finally, DSP-intensive features resembling privacy modes and directed sound will perform higher with piezoMEMS loudspeakers. Because of the uniformity and consistency of the semiconductor process, these speakers have near-ideal part-to-part loudness and phase matching, delivering a more predictable window for the DSP algorithm to operate. With less variability from the speaker, the DSP algorithms can enhance performance with less processing overhead.
Unlocking the Potential of Edge AI Devices
In the long run, it’s going to take significant innovation to bring the ability of generative AI to consumer edge devices. Not only must manufacturers overcome physics, but they need to also ensure one of the best possible user experience – all without compromising on form factor.
Latest innovations in piezoMEMS technology open possibilities to remove thermal constraints, deliver improved speech intelligibility for conversational AI while enhancing the style (thin) and luxury (weight) in edge AI smartphones and AR glasses.
The genAI ecosystem is vast and interlinked. PiezoMEMS generally is a key enabler.
