If you thought the speakers in your smartphone were already compact, HTC’s apparently getting ready to blow your mind. The Taiwanese smartphone maker has filed for a patent on some sort of flat speaker technology that will reduce the thickness of the speaker down to something that might be about as thick as a sheet of paper. The speaker technology outlined in the patent makes use of an electret diaphragm that vibrates a thin dielectric film to produce sounds.
With smartphones these days shedding weight and cutting millimeters of their waistline, HTC seems to be looking forward to a future filled with ever slimmer smartphones. A paper-thin speaker would certainly allow upcoming smartphones to take their slim-down diets to the next level. And, HTC is not alone in their quest to create new mobile phone components that will allows for thinner handsets – Samsung has already made significant advances in slimming down their AMOLED display technology to be the thinnest display panel available today.
How does HTC’s new speaker technology work? We won’t pretend to know all the ins and outs of the tech, but from the patent application, we can tell you that the electret diaphragm is composed of oppositely-charged films that vibrate according to the electrical input. Those vibrations can produce the sounds that you’d normally hear out of a magnet-driven speaker. What’s important is that this tech could, if it ever makes it into production, allow for super slim future smartphones from HTC.
Find the FCC patent application docs here.
[Via: WMPowerUser]