Audience Introduces earSmart eS515 Sound Processor

Audience has just announced their latest smartphone/mobile audio processor, the earSmart eS515. The earSmart eS515 combines the company’s advanced voice processing technology, which is already employed in many popular smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, with a high-performance, low-power audio codec for enhanced voice quality and speech recognition and a better multimedia experience. By combining the sound processor with an audio codec onto a single chip, Audience is also able to cut power consumption and reduce off-chip communication for potentially better battery life as well.

We’ve got the full press release announcing the earSmart eS515 below and hope to have more information regarding design wins after CES.

Audience Introduces the earSmart eS515 – The World’s First Smart Sound Processor

First in Family of Smart Sound Processors Combines New Audience Codec Technology with Proven Advanced Voice Processing For New Levels of Personal Presence on Mobile Devices

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Jan. 7, 2013 – Audience, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADNC), the leader in advanced voice and audio processing for mobile devices, today announced the world’s first Smart Sound Processor, the earSmart eS515. The earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor combines the company’s award-winning Advanced Voice processing technology with its first high-performance, low-power audio codec for a best in class voice, speech recognition and multimedia experience on a mobile device.

Consumer demand has shifted to more sophisticated mobile devices with greater processing power, slimmer designs, larger displays and advanced multimedia features. Mobile device manufacturers are looking to tightly integrated processing solutions that deliver more, for less power. The earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor responds to this need by delivering a number of industry first innovations: simultaneous 3-microphone processing, optimized Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Mobile Audio Zoom and Super Wideband support for Voice over IP (VoIP), combined with a robust audio codec designed specifically for the newest mobile devices.

“In recent months, Audience has demonstrated its commitment and passion for delivering the best-sounding voice and audio experience on pioneering mobile devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note II, the Google Nexus 10, the Motorola Razr I, and the world’s thinnest Android smartphone, the BBK Vivo X1.” said Peter Santos, president and CEO, Audience. “The earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor is the first silicon to offer Advanced Voice technology integrated with a complete audio codec subsystem – it takes us to the next stage in sound processing, providing our customers with a level of performance, integration, efficiency and auditory presence never before experienced.”

Be Heard – With Best in Class Voice Processing
The earSmart eS515 features Audience’s third generation Advanced Voice technologies. The earSmart eS515 delivers the world’s first three-microphone technology where all three microphones can be used simultaneously to gather more environmental information around the user and deliver vastly improved voice quality. In addition, the earSmart eS515 supports high sample-rate VoIP calls, offering the industry’s best voice quality for narrowband and wideband networks. The earSmart eS515 is also the first sound processor to offer de-reverberation for mobile devices – removing the echo effect in spaces such as conference rooms and hallways.

Be Understood – With Optimized ASR Assist
ASR Assist technology from Audience directly addresses the challenge faced by many speech recognition applications today, namely their failure to recognize spoken words and complete assigned tasks because of disruptive background noise. The earSmart eS515 uses custom hardware-accelerated algorithms to isolate voice from surrounding environmental noise, dramatically improving the user experience of speech-enabled applications such as virtual assistants and voice search. Mobile devices equipped with Audience ASR Assist technology deliver improved speech application reliability, accuracy and task completion – even in noisy, distracting environments.

Be There – With Enhanced Media Capture and Playback
Mobile devices today are relied upon for media capture as much as they are for communication. The desire for captured audio to have the same high-definition (HD) quality as video has never been more apparent. The earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor features the world’s first two-microphone 48 KHz noise suppression implementation for the recording of clean, HD audio. The earSmart eS515 also features Audio Zoom, the world’s first selective audio capture feature to be deployed for mobile devices. Audio Zoom allows users to dynamically switch between narrate mode, with a single speaker, to interview mode, where the person holding the device can “interview” another person. Interview mode leverages Audience’s industry leading stationary noise reduction technology to capture both voices with crystal clear accuracy while still suppressing background noise.

Advanced Voice + Powerful Integrated Codec = Smart Sound Processor
The earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor is a high performance, audio processing solution with significant integration and flexibility. The solution includes an Audience Advanced Voice Processor core and a hardware accelerator engine, optimized to run computationally intensive audio algorithms with low power consumption. In addition, the earSmart eS515 processor includes a best in class stereo audio codec. Before the eS515, codecs this advanced were only available in discrete solutions. The Audience codec subsystem consists of analog to digital converters (ADCs) on the record path and digital to analog converters (DACs) on the playback path. The codec subsystem includes stereo class D speaker drivers, stereo class G headphone drivers, an earpiece driver, and two line outputs.

The earSmart eS515 is currently sampling to customers globally. For more information on the Audience earSmart family of products and more detailed specifications on the eS515, please go here.

About Audience
Audience is the leader in advanced voice and audio processing for mobile devices. Its family of earSmart™ intelligent voice processors is based on the processes of human hearing, to suppress background noise and enhance mobile voice quality. Audience's technology substantially improves the mobile voice experience, while also improving the performance of speech-based services, and enhancing audio quality for multimedia. Audience earSmart™ processors are featured in mobile devices from leading providers in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the U.S. The company is based in Mountain View, California. For more information, see www.audience.com.