Patent ID: 7630504

Claim:
A digital microphone comprising: a microphone housing having a sound inlet and comprising: a transducer element comprising a displaceable diaphragm and adapted to generate a transducer signal representative of sound received through the sound inlet, an analog-to-digital converter comprising a multi-level quantizer operatively coupled to the transducer element to convert the transducer signal into multi-bit samples representative of the transducer signal, the multi-level quantizer having at least three discrete quantization levels, each of the discrete quantization levels being represented by a set of corresponding symbols, each symbol comprises a number of one signs, the number of one signs being proportional with a magnitude of the transducer signal represented by the corresponding multi-bit sample, a digital signal converter adapted to convert the multi-bit samples into an unformatted single-bit output signal, and an externally accessible terminal adapted to provide the unformatted single-bit output signal.