ASPEED and CEVA Collaborate to Enable Superior Voice Experience on 2nd Generation Cupola360 SoC for Smart Cameras and Video Conferencing Systems

CEVA-BX1 DSP powers audio/voice workloads in ASPEED's AST1230 smart camera SoC; CEVA ClearVox voice front-end software is available to ASPEED's customers to address most challenging multi-microphone conferencing use cases.

Consumer Electronics Show - CEVA, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEVA), the leading licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies and integrated IP solutions, and ASPEED Technology, have announced that ASPEED has licensed and deployed the CEVA-BX1 audio/voice DSP in its 2nd generation Cupola360 SoC, AST1230 for smart cameras and video conferencing systems. The companies are also collaborating to address the most challenging conferencing use cases with the availability of CEVA's ClearVox multi-microphone noise reduction & acoustic echo cancellation audio front end (AFE) software. This software package is fully optimized for the CEVA-BX1 DSP, significantly enhancing the intelligibility of any voice conferencing system and allowing voice assistants and hands-free control capabilities to be added.

Chris Lin, Chairman and President of ASPEED Technology, commented: "Our 2nd generation Cupola360 SoC is our first product to incorporate real-time multi-image stitching video and powerful audio processing capabilities, making it perfect for video conferencing applications. Through the comprehensive cooperation between CEVA and ASPEED, our customers can enjoy the most superior video & audio functionality and we are glad to have CEVA as our strong and trusted partner."

ASPEED's 2nd generation Cupola360 multi-image stitching video & audio SoC, AST1230, as well as the accompanying app, is specifically designed for high performance video conferencing applications. With a focus on advanced smart cameras for spherical video conferencing applications, the AST1230 SoC features include a powerful image signal processor (ISP) and a smart layout processing engine. Incorporating ASPEED's unique Hyper-stitching^® technology, the AST1230 SoC is engineered to deliver extraordinary processing power for on-device real-time image stitching. Incorporating the high level programmable CEVA-BX1 DSP to tackle the most challenging audio/voice use cases, the AST1230 SoC offers exceptional power and thermal efficiency, making it ideal for a wide range of emerging IoT applications. Additional features include 8 digital MIC inputs with powerful audio processing algorithms, including far-field speech, beam-forming, auto gain control (AGC), noise suppression, and echo cancelation.

Moshe Sheier, Vice President of Marketing at CEVA, added: "Video conferencing plays an increasingly critical role in most organizations and work-from-home scenarios today, and their underlying equipment is key to making the experience effortless and productive. We're pleased to partner with ASPEED, one of the leaders in this space, to ensure that the voice experience of these systems is seamless and powerful, no matter the user environment. Our value-add ClearVox voice software illustrates the unique value we can bring to our customers with our hardware + software approach to IP, and we look forward to collaborating with ASPEED and their customers to introduce a new generation of smart conferencing systems to the market."

The CEVA-BX1 processor combines efficient DSP compute capability with high-level programming and compact code size requirements of embedded applications. Using an 11-stage pipeline and 4-way VLIW micro-architecture, it offers parallel processing with a Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) ISA, widely used in neural networks inference, noise reduction and echo cancellation, as well as high accuracy sensor fusion algorithms. The CEVA-BX1 is accompanied by a comprehensive software development tool chain, including an advanced LLVM compiler, Eclipse based debugger, DSP and neural network compute libraries, neural network frameworks support in the form of Tensorflow Lite Micro, and choice of industry leading Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS). For more information, visit https://www.ceva-dsp.com/product/ceva-bx1-sound/.

Developed in-house and leveraging CEVA's vast expertize in audio and voice processing, ClearVox audio front end incorporates advanced algorithms that cope with different acoustic scenarios and microphone configurations, including optimized software for speaker direction of arrival, multi-mic beamforming, noise suppression and acoustic echo cancellation, as well as the related firmware and driver software. For more information, visit https://www.ceva-dsp.com/product/ceva-clearvox/.

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