Microsemi Announces AcuEdge Development Kit for Amazon Alexa Voice Service

Microsemi Corporation, a leading provider of semiconductor solutions, today announced its AcuEdge Development Kit for Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS). The kit delivers enhanced audio processing to improve voice recognition rates in adverse audio environments for emerging human to machine (H2M) applications in the IoT, IIoT, and automated assistance markets.

 

This kit allows third-party developers and original design manufacturers (ODMs) to evaluate and incorporate Alexa functionality in H2M applications while interfacing with Microsemi Timberwolf ZL38063 multi-mic audio processor. 

 

Timberwolf is a field programmable, field upgradable digital signal processor equipped with specific hardware accelerators to run three simultaneous acoustic echo cancellers (AECs). The development kit comes with a development board that connects directly to a Raspberry Pi and plastic frames to help position microphones and speakers in targeted applications. 

 

Moving on, Timberworlf is also equipped with compressor/limiter/expander (CLE) microphone pickup algorithms, beam forming, and stationary as well as non-stationary noise reduction, enabling voice control and speech recognition not merely from a distance but also in the presence of adverse noise and audio. 

 

The kit features a Timberwolf evaluation board populated with two microphones capable of operating in both 180 and 360-degree audio pickup modes. The board is also equipped with the Raspberry Pi connector allowing quick and easy setup. In addition, the kit is delivered with a board and speaker stand to enable users to quickly evaluate the performance of the solution.

 

The signal processing technology implemented by Timberwolf audio processor includes the following:

 

• Noise Reduction

• Beam Forming

• Barge-in support

• CLE mic pickup

• Full Duplex 2-way audio

• Stereo acoustic echo cancellation

• Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) and Inter-IC Sound (I2S)/time-division multiplexing (TDM) connection to the Raspberry Pi

 

 

The Microsemi AcuEdge Development Kit for Amazon AVS is available through distributors Arrow and Future Electronics at the retail price of $299. 

 

 

Microsemi’s AcuEdge’s technology consists of license-free, royalty-free audio intellectual property (IP) solutions. It is the compilation of various IPs targeted at processing voice signals in conjunction with noise reduction algorithms, automatic gain control, echo cancellation, psychoacoustic noise reduction, howling detection and rejection. These powerful capabilities are the foundation for enterprise level automatic speech recognition, sound classification and other intelligent decision-making functions based on sound and audio detection. 

The ZL38063 Timberwolf provides a powerful digital signal processor (DSP) with voice specific hardware accelerators, three digital microphone interfaces, two independent 16-bit digital-to-analog converters (DACs) with headphone drivers and two flexible time-division multiplexed (TDM) interfaces in a single 64-pin QFN package. 

 

Additional features include 44.1/48 kHz stereo music playback with voice, ultra low and standby off power, and stationary and psychoacoustic noise reduction. It can run unattended (controller less) and offers self-booting into a configured operational state. In addition, the ZL38063 has built-in support for G.712 and G.722 and is G.168 and G.169 compliant line echo cancellation (LEC).

 

 

Microsemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC) offers a comprehensive portfolio of semiconductor and system solutions for aerospace & defense, communications, data center and industrial markets. Products include high-performance and radiation-hardened analog mixed-signal integrated circuits, FPGAs, SoCs and ASICs; power management products; timing and synchronization devices and precise time solutions, setting the world’s standard for time; voice processing devices; RF solutions; discrete components; enterprise storage and communication solutions, security technologies and scalable anti-tamper products; Ethernet solutions; Power-over-Ethernet ICs and midspans; as well as custom design capabilities and services. Microsemi is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, and has approximately 4,800 employees globally.