Hmmm, Yes, I do see.
So U-Sound have a speaker design. It requires 2 amplifiers, a woofer, a DSP and a power supply. Oh, and of course, with the woofer, it probably also requires a carefully optimised case. I'm not sure what the overall size is but I doubt that it will fit into a smart phone, tablet, laptop, or TV bezel. In fact, yes, it looks just like most other speaker designs of the current generation.
Yes it has a MEMS device, and these are described as part of an array. But that is as far as the similarity goes. And that is not far enough.
The U-Sound MEMS is a miniature speaker membrane mounted onto a set of piezoelectric levers that move the membrane in and out in an analog manner. I.e. it is still a discrete membrane speaker, just very small. Each device is around 3x3mm. As such it has many of the drawbacks of membrane speakers. Don't get me wrong, it is a clever piece of work and has many advantages over other conventional type speakers. It will undoubtedly find a market as a competitor to conventional speakers, and to a lesser extent to AudioPixels speaker enabled systems.
If you'll excuse the pun, I know that I have "harped on" about DSR, but this is where AP shines and other systems do not. DSR is revolutionary. For DSR to work it requires the elements that make up a DSR array be less than a millimetre in size. That is why the original idea from the 1920's was abandoned. DSR demands a MEMS Array. There is no other way of building acoustically capable devices that small without resorting to MEMS technology. DSR is the key tech that makes AP so good.I do not believe U-Sound's array does DSR (Digital Sound Reconstruction). It's probably just a group of separate independent MEMS speakers all doing just the same thing at the same time so as to increase the output volume to an adequate level. U-Sound's DSP presumably transforms a digital audio signal into an analog signal. That analog signal is then sent to the MEMS to produce analog movement and hence sound. See the following info from U-Sounds site, noting firstly the analog signal symbols in the diagrams and the final comment that I have highlighted red:
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USound’s technology is based on piezoelectricity. Crystals with these properties are for example aluminium nitride (AlN) or lead zirconate titanate (PZT). These materials expand or shrink in an electric field. In a practical configuration, such an electric field is generated between electrodes, covering a piezoelectric layer. This stack is put on top of a substrate (for example a silicon plate). So, if an electric field is applied across its electrodes, the top layer contracts and bends the whole plate upwards.
The bending movement must be translated into a one-dimensional piston-like movement to drive a loudspeaker membrane. For this, multiple bending cantilevers are attached to a central element via spring structures. Therefore, in a symmetric arrangement, the plate will then only move up and down.
To radiate sound, air must be moved. To move more air, the smallMEMSstructure is connected to a membrane that expands the movement over a larger surface.
The result is a system working just like a standard electrodynamic speaker, but with the bulky magnet-coil engine replaced by integrated piezo-actuators on a MEMS chip.
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There are a whole series of arguments that need to be considered to compare and contrast DSR MEMS and analog MEMS speakers. Anyone who is interested and able to follow the full arguments is welcome to peruse the U-Sound site in its entirety and to comment here on the differences in SPL, THD and other audio quality measures coming from the two systems. I don't have the time nor the expertise to do so.
For my money I am fairly confident that AP has a winner of a technology as soon as it can start to pump the devices off a production line!
One thing I will say though is that AP could learn a lot from the quality of the supporting literature and technology explanations that U-Sound have put together. So much of the doubt that pervades so many of the comments on this site are (IMHO) a direct consequence of AP's lack of proper adequate tech info being put before interested parties in an easily accessible form. We really should not have to pore over the (publicly available) patent docs to find out about this unique and brilliant product! I hope you're listening Yuval and Fred!
(20min delay)