New Hearing Aid – Compression Amplifier

Dave Adams, Executive Vice President of Micronix , announced today that the company has developed an ASIC that contains a special compression amplifier that will be of great benefit to the hearing impaired. Designed to be programmed precisely for a person's hearing loss, the in-the-ear hearing unit is automatic and requires no volume control. With the recent attention given to President Clinton's hearing loss, this new technology becomes an important announcement as more focus will be centered on the hearing impaired and new technological developments being developed to help them. Micronix is an application specific integrated circuit company, specializing in analog and mixed-signal solutions.

How ASIC chip helps the hearing impaired According to Pat Patibandla, senior design engineer for Micronix, "In hearing impaired persons, the perceived loudness increases disproportionately as the sound pressure level increases. In other words the dynamic range of the hearing impaired is much narrower than the range of someone with normal hearing. To provide the hearing impaired a normal perception of loudness, a dynamic range compressor is required in order to accommodate the full dynamic range of normal hearing into the reduced dynamic range of the hearing impaired. The perceived loudness also varies with frequency, which necessitates splitting of the frequency spectrum and providing a variable compression ratio compressor in each band.

"Under normal circumstances, such requirements would require two separate integrated circuits, one employing CMOS technology for the band splitting filters and digital logic, and the other employing BIPOLAR technology for the dynamic range compressor with variable compression ratios. However, to achieve such requirements to fit-in-the-ear hearing aid, a single chip solution was required. Micronix developed a unique continuous time dynamic range compressor topology that can be implemented using CMOS technology. This compressor with variable compression ratio is well suited with high density digital logic."

Leading Edge Technology Dave Adams stated, "We believe this chip is leading edge technology. Not only does it meet the basic compression amplifier requirements, but handles much more - filters, memory, etc. Furthermore, different programs are available so that the user can select the program for a particular environment, such as being in a concert hall or on the telephone. And the concepts found in this chip will lend itself to a wide range of possibilities in the communications field."

About The Author:

Jen Bead is a successful author and regular contributor to http://www.digital-hearing-aids-n-protection.com. Finding out more about hearing loss, so you can choose the digital hearing aids or therapy that is necessary.