CIE Components in Electronics
Wolfson Microelectronics, a specialist in high performance mixed-signal semiconductors and audio solutions for the consumer electronics market, and Sensory, a company that develops speech technologies for consumer electronics, have announced the availability of Sensory”s TrulyHandsfreeVoice Control and audio detect front-end on Wolfson’s latest ultra-low power platforms for mobile phone audio channel processing.
The two companies have implemented Sensory’s TrulyHandsfree on Wolfson’s WM5110 High Definition (HD) Audio System on a Chip (SoC), as well as on its WM0010 and WM0011 digital signal processor (DSP) products. The WM5110, with advanced DSP, delivers HD Audio performance to portable consumer electronics devices, including smartphones and tablet computers. The WM5110, or Wolfson’s WM0010 and WM0011 products, combined with Sensory’s TrulyHandsfree solution, are able to deliver speed, accuracy, reliability and noise robustness in a very small and low power footprint, with minimal impact to handset standby time, enabling a true ‘always on, always listening’ experience for the first time.
Advances in speech recognition technology and cloud computing have helped to make voice user interfaces a “must-have” feature in many of today’s mobile phones. However, all of these still require either a touch to activate – which can be difficult if the user has their hands full, as well as dangerous and increasingly illegal while driving – or the use of an ‘always on, always listening’ mode which risks using up the device’s battery.
Rash Sahota, VP of Audio Solutions at Wolfson Microelectronics, said: “This technology from Wolfson and Sensory represents a crucial breakthrough in the way that voice control for mobile phones is used, removing the need to activate it through touch and ensuring that it becomes a successful communication solution in real-world situations.”
Commenting Bill Teasley, VP of Engineering at Sensory said: “Sensory and Wolfson have created a solution for ultra-low power high accuracy speech recognition on portable devices. Mobile phones can now include voice control, intelligent voice search and utilise voice assistants without the user having to touch the phone or wear down the battery.”
Demonstrations will be shown at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, February 25th-28th, on stand 2A62, hall 2.
