Pulse Density Modulation (PDM) is a popular way to deliver audio from microphones to the signal or application processors inside mobile and IoT devices. PDM is ideally suited for this task because it brings the benefits of digital, such as low noise and freedom from interfering signals, at low cost.
For signal processors that do not have enough PDM inputs or have one or no I2S interfaces, the iCE40 UltraPlus microphone aggregation reference design allows the connection of up to eight microphones to a processor over I2S or SPI bus.
Multiple microphones are becoming widely used in personal assistance devices for audio beamforming. A microphone array is used to form a spatial filter, which can extract a signal from a specific direction and reduce the contamination of signals from other directions.