Amazon AVS

XMOS today announced that its VocalFusion™ voice technology has been selected by Shenzhen eMeet Technology Co for its mobile smart office assistant, eMeet OfficeCore M1. This commercial solution, which is available now from online retail stores, is the first output of this partnership.

The compact and portable speaker uses a USB and Bluetooth connection with a mobile phone or laptop to convert any space into a conference call facility. XMOS VocalFusion technology was chosen for its ability to detect and isolate the spoken word within 8 metres in all directions, thanks to far-field voice recognition capability and an array of seven eMeet 360° omni-directional microphones. The XMOS XVF3000 voice processor uses acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) to remove playback audio from the microphone signal allowing users to barge-in and talk over the playback signal. Automated noise suppression (ANS) and dereverberation technologies are used to remove unwanted noise and echoes in the captured signal, providing a crystal clear output signal. The microphone follows a voice as it moves around the room (via beamforming), and ensures that even the quietest person in the room can be easily heard.

“We chose the XMOS VocalFusion technology for our eMeet OfficeCore M1 because of the superior far-field voice technology and unrivalled processing power it can deliver for thin client applications,” said Wyman Chen, CEO at eMeet. “Our product is aimed at the professional conference call market, so quality of voice capture, noise isolation and AEC were key to the design. We’re extremely pleased with the result and the benefits that the XMOS technology has delivered to our product.”

Commenting on the announcement, Mark Lippett, President and CEO at XMOS, said “The eMeet solution is a typical example of the type of work our teams are involved in with professional and consumer electronics companies worldwide. Our technology is perfectly suited to addressing the issues of conference call quality in noisy environments, and eMeet has used this capability to deliver a superior product for business environments. We are seeing a huge demand for the benefits that our VocalFusion technology can deliver in an unprecedented range of applications and eMeet is one of the first companies to realize that potential in a commercial product.”

To discover more about the eMeet OfficeCore M1, visit www.eMeet.ai.

About XMOS

XMOS is a leading supplier of voice and audio solutions to the consumer electronics market. The combination of its unique silicon architecture and highly differentiated software positions it at the interface between voice processing, biometrics and artificial intelligence. For more information, see www.xmos.com.

About eMeet

eMeet is an innovation-leading company, focused on mobile meeting solutions. We combine a unique voice product, AI service and multi-party information communication technologies to serve global users. eMeet solutions deliver greater value and improvements to the office efficiency of our end customers. For more information, please visit www.eMeet.ai.

XMOS announced today announced its VocalFusion 4-Mic Dev Kit for Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) is the first far-field, mono-AEC, linear mic array solution available. The XMOS kit is ideal for developers who want to integrate Alexa into smart panels, kitchen appliances, and other commercial and industrial electronics.

The kit features a compact four-microphone linear 100mm array. The captured voice signals are crystal clear even in noisy environments, enabling commands to be accurately captured from across the room for processing by the Alexa cloud-based speech recognition system. XMOS is the only solution to date that packs audio digital signal processing (DSP) and programmable I/O processing and control software into a single chip, enabling customers to significantly reduce their bill of materials, flexibly tailor their designs, and reduce costs.

The VocalFusion 4-Mic Dev Kit for Amazon AVS is the first development kit to feature a reference client built using the recently released AVS Device SDK. The AVS Device SDK is designed to further simplify the experience of creating Alexa-enabled products, thereby helping commercial device makers get AVS products to market faster.

“We’re delighted to work with XMOS as they introduce the first far-field linear mic array AVS solution, making it easier for developers and OEMs to build Alexa-enabled products,” said Priya Abani, Director, Amazon Alexa. “XMOS’ VocalFusion 4-Mic Dev Kit for Amazon AVS will accelerate the deployment of Alexa in deeply embedded systems, new device types, and form-factors, bringing customers more choice of where to access Alexa.”

At the heart of the XMOS solution is the VocalFusion XVF3000, a highly integrated far-field voice processor based on the XMOS award-winning xCORE multicore architecture. The XVF3000 delivers sophisticated voice DSP capability including a full duplex acoustic echo canceller (AEC) with barge-in capability that enables users to interrupt or pause a device that’s playing music, and sophisticated noise suppression with adaptive beamforming to provide high quality voice interaction experiences even in noisy environments.

“We’re excited to collaborate with Amazon, the pioneer in voice-enabled consumer solutions. We believe that our homes and offices will very soon be smart environments, and that voice provides the most convenient and intuitive solution to control the many machines that surround us,” said Mark Lippett, President and CEO at XMOS. “Solutions like ours enable developers to bring to market connected products that can be used with simplicity, in our own natural spoken language. We are working with our partners to accelerate the adoption of AVS as the voice solution of choice for the Internet of Things.”

The VocalFusion 4-Mic Kit for Amazon AVS (XK-VF3000-L33-AVS) is immediately available to developers, OEMs, and ODMs from Digi-Key.

About XMOS

XMOS is a leading supplier of voice and audio solutions to the consumer electronics market. The combination of its unique silicon architecture and highly differentiated software positions it at the interface between voice processing, biometrics and artificial intelligence. For more information, see www.xmos.com.