Facilities and expertise
Acoustic Engineering
- Expert analysis of personal audio and electroacoustic systems.
- Performance testing of headphones and earphones, using both mannequin and bespoke testing environments.
- Characterisation of electroacoustic components, including loudspeakers, microphones, and materials.
- Multiphysics finite element modelling of electroacoustic systems at component and system levels.
- Development of high performance noise cancelling headphones and earphones.
Electronic Engineering
- Schematic level design of innovative mixed-signal noise cancelling electronics.
- Application-level electronic design of digital wired and wireless noise cancelling headphones.
- FW development for 8-32 bit microprocessors and microcontrollers (MCUs).
- Validation and failure analysis of internally and externally developed electronics.
Software + Signal Processing
- Development of custom Computer-Aided-Engineering tools for noise cancelling headphones.
- Engineering of HW drivers for Windows, MacOS, Linux, and Android platforms.
- Research and development into low-latency audio processing algorithms for virtual and psychoacoustics, noise cancelling & production test.
About Us
Markets served
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Commercial aviation
Passengers on long haul flights have come to expect a personal entertainment experience in the air that matches that enjoyed on the ground. Drawing upon our extensive experience in consumer electronics, we are able to deliver just that.
Our solutions for the aircraft cabin bring innovation in media delivery, smart noise cancelling, open-ear talk-through and digital surround sound.
To simplify customers’ access to our solutions and to ensure their compatibility, we exercise strategic partnerships in this market with Panasonic Avionics Corporation, the leading supplier of inflight entertainment equipment, and Long Prosper Enterprise, the world’s largest manufacturer of airline headphones.
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Consumer electronics
We transform conventional stereo headphones into smart, wearable noise cancelling devices.
Our patented solutions provide the flexibility to dynamically configure the electroacoustics of a headphone, delivering performance improvements and advanced features that are responsive to both use-case and ambient sound conditions.
Our solutions are smart and capable, offering market-leading audio and noise cancelling performance combined with new, innovative means of control and oversight. They are practical, easily integrated and reliably mass-produced.
Leadership team
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Mark Weldon
Chairman of the Board
Mark, based in Queenstown – New Zealand, was appointed SoundChip’s Chairman in 2012. He holds a Juris Doctor degree and a diploma (Hons) in International Law from Columbia University, along with an MCom (Hons) in Economics and Bachelor’s degree in Commerce and Arts from the University of Auckland.
Unit May 2012, Mark was CEO of NZX, which ran trading, clearing, settling and other securities market technology systems along with the New Zealand national energy market infrastructure.
Mark has a keen interest in technology and since leaving the NZX has invested his time in supporting several successful technology start-ups.
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Mark Donaldson
Chief Executive Officer
Mark, based in Lausanne – Switzerland, is a founding member of SoundChip’s management team and board of directors. He holds both Masters (with Distinction) and First Class Honours degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Auckland and in 2007 was named Ernst and Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year in New Zealand.
In addition to having more than 20 years experience in designing and commercialising high-performance noise cancelling headphones, Mark has authored more than a dozen patents in this field – several of these being seminal in their specific area of application.
Mark is a strong proponent of the concept of ‘smart wearable sound’ and believes that noise cancelling is the key enabler.
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Paul Darlington
Chief Technology Officer
Paul, based in Manchester – England, is a founding member of SoundChip’s management team and board of directors. He holds BSc, MSc and PhD degrees from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research and the University of Southampton, respectively.
Paul has worked in audio and noise cancellation for personal communication systems since the 1980s, acting as a consultant to RAE Farnborough (latterly DERA, QINETIQ), TI and Nokia along the way. He has authored several patents in acoustics, electroacoustics, electronics, transducer engineering and active noise cancellation.
Paul is an expert in system-level audio and the individual technologies which constitute the audio chain.
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Ben Skelton
Chief Operating Officer
Ben, based in Hong Kong – China, is a founding member of SoundChip’s management team and board of directors. He holds a PhD in Communications and Information Theory from the University of Canterbury along with a First Class Honours degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
Ben has led product development teams for international firms operating in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. He has considerable practical and management-level experience in audio product engineering, manufacturing, software, and test system development covering both consumer and automotive markets.
