Programmable Low Power ASIC for Hearing-aids

The combined company TÜRK+TÜRK ELECTRONIC GMBH (T+T) and INTERTON HÖRGERÄTE GMBH is developing, manufacturing and selling hearing-aids. T+T does the developing and manufacturing, and the subsidiary company INTERTON HÖRGERÄTE is responsible for the selling and the marketing. The company started the AE with the aim to develop an ASIC, which replaces the mechanical trimmers in the hearing-aid. This would offer several advantages, including improved performance, miniaturisation, applicability to both current and future hearing-aids, and ease of programming. The miniaturisation affects the ITE (In-the-Ear) and CIC (Completely-in-Channel) hearing-aids of the smallest size, which represents a niche market for a small company like T+T. These aids have a higher cosmetical use than BTE's (behind-the-ear). Larger companies like SIEMENS or PHILIPS are pushing ahead with using digital signals processing ICs (DSP). The AE allows the company to participate at this technology. The company gained advantage in all aspects of low power mixed signal ASIC methods, so that they take an active part in further designs. The experiment costs were 155,000 ECU with a duration of 15 month. The increase in sales of the new product will allow the company to increase its profit in 1999. The payback period will be 2 years after introducing the product in the market. The product lifetime is about 5 years, the return on investment is about 300%. The time to market is about 1 year. In general the results of this AE will be of interest to companies, operating in the high-end hearingaid and acoustic market. 1. Company name and address TÜRK + TÜRK ELECTRONIC GMBH AM DÄNNEKAMP 15 D-51469 BERGISCH GLADBACH Germany