I've been doing a lot of audio projects recently. For audio input, I've settled on using I2S MEMS microphones.

These are great devices that you interface directly to your microcontroller without needing any analog to digital converters.

Up until now, I've been using breakout boards based around the INMP441 microphone and although there seem to be plenty of boards available the actual microphone is no longer manufactured and is not recommended for new designs.

It's also now quite old and two generations behind. The latest microphone from InvenSense is the ICS-43434.

There are a couple of boards available from the US, but the shipping costs are quite high.

So I decided to get a few boards manufactured!

Wiring up the boards is very straightforward, we need 3.3 volts and Ground - these boards are not 5V tolerant so do not connect them to the 5v rail or you will damage them.

You then just need the three I2S lines. You can configure the board to be on either the left or right channel, so if you have two you can connect them both to the same I2S interface and get stereo recording!

Sample code available here on GitHub: https://github.com/atomic14/ICS-43434-breakout-board

You can buy fully assembled boards on eBay - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154115095985

And Tindie - https://www.tindie.com/products/atomic14/ics-43434-i2s-mems-microphone-breakout-board