Conexant has made significant progress in the audio market over the past year. With its unique technologies and growing ecosystem, the company is well-positioned to expand its leadership in the notebook and tablet markets to include a wider range of segments such as smart home, IoT, automotive, headsets and docking stations.
"We can help customers solve real problems," noted Saleel Awsare, Conexant vice president and general manager, when asked to explain the key factor that has contributed to the company's recent success in the audio market.
Voice and speech communications play a critical role in people's personal and professional lives, and there is a rapidly growing need for increased collaboration through Skype, Lync or conference calls. However, in reality, the background noises and echoes that occur during these calls (in offices, airports, homes, busy cafes) can be significant - and can effectively shut down communication and ruin collaboration.
From background noise that makes these calls unintelligible to a microphone that doesn't clearly pick up what the user is saying, voice communications over the Internet have been far from ideal.
Conexant's AudioSmart 2.0 silicon and software solutions address this issue by improving the audio experience in noisy, real-world conditions. Features such as advanced, proprietary noise suppression and acoustic echo cancellation technology enable a more natural collaboration experience with crystal clear audio and no background noise – on any PC or mobile device application.
"Simply put, our complete range of AudioSmart solutions delivers better sound," said Awsare. "From a truly immersive gaming experience, to a clear, lifelike Skype call – our software radically improves the quality of voice and audio performance, and is tightly coupled with our next generation CODEC and amplifier products for an innovative, comprehensive solution.""
Expanded presence in Greater China
Despite the fierce competition in the audio market, Conexant is a key player in this field. Awsare stressed that what sets Conexant apart from competitors is that it's the only company in the market that has built a complete end-to-end solution that includes hardware CODECs, smart amplifiers, input processors, output processors, and software.
This unique competitiveness has enabled Conexant to acquire several design wins in the past year. "In order to enable our AudioSmart voice and speech processing software to work with any hardware CODEC, we announced our stand-alone AudioSmart software for PCs and tablets at Computex last year," Awsare noted. "Since that time, four of the top five PC OEMs have adopted our solutions."
"In addition, our AudioSmart technology has been adopted by major TV makers, including LG, Samsung, and Panasonic, to develop the voice interface for smart TVs and set-top-boxes," Awsare added. "It is also being used in some automotive applications in Japan. The last 12 months have been really exciting for us. We have achieved tremendous growth."
Considering Greater China's increasingly important role in the world's economy, Conexant has decided to further expand its presence in this region. "Due to an increasing customer base and continued growth, we will open up a test chamber in Taipei in June of this year," Awsare said. "Our focus will be on providing audio test services to customers in Greater China.""
Meanwhile, because the staff in Taipei has increased to 50 people, Conexant Taipei will move to a new office later this year.
As for the China market, Conexant has partnered with some local companies to further penetrate the smart home and automotive markets.
At the CITE2015 (China Information Technology Expo) just held in April, Conexant's customers including IFlytek, Unisound, LeTV, etc. were in attendance to demonstrate their related solutions.
For example, Unisound used Conexant's processor to develop its FVM module for home voice controller and IVM module for educational robot. Other products included Aispeech's SmallZhi WiFi speaker, and IFlytek's 2MIC array for automotive applications.
Strong ecosystem partnerships
"We put a lot of effort into establishing a comprehensive ecosystem with partners across different market segments," Awsare stressed.
Awsare explained that AudioSmart software provides clear voice quality, eliminates noise from the microphone input signal, and therefore can dramatically improve automatic speech recognition (ASR) system performance, which is vital to the emerging applications such as voice command and speech recognition.
"Technologies that make use of speech recognition, such as always-on voice engines, can benefit from the crystal clear audio facilitated by AudioSmart," noted Awsare. "The result is a superior audio experience for the end user, with excellent listening performance and voice quality in noisy, real-world conditions."
"I am fully confident that our AudioSmart technology will be very useful in a variety of markets, including automotive, computing and consumer electronics," Awsare added. "By teaming up with partners, we have seen the great potential of expanding our comprehensive audio solutions to a wider range of voice and speech applications."
Conexant now has strong relationships with software vendors such as Nuance, iFlytek, Agnitio, Google, Microsoft, Dolby, Waves, and DTS, as well as microphone and speaker vendors like FG, AAC, Zylux, Horn, Knowles, and Akustica.
Conexant also works with major SoC and DSP core vendors including Intel, AMD, and Cadence. The company just announced that its AudioSmart software has been ported to Cadence's Tensilica HiFi DSP architecture, the most popular audio IP core architecture.
Announcement at Computex
Continuing its growth momentum, Conexant will again unveil an important new product at this year's Computex.
The company will announce the addition of a new, ultra-low power, high-performance HD Audio CODEC to their AudioSmart 2.0 product line. The CX8200 is a single-chip solution optimized for use on any platform with an integrated speaker. Conexant's CX8200 features a fully-integrated Class-D smart amplifier that, when combined with the company's innovative software, delivers flawless speech recognition, natural voice collaboration, and audio output that is several times louder using existing speakers.
It uses a proprietary "SoftAware" link to interconnect amplifier hardware sensors with software algorithms. The dataflow between hardware sensors and software enables dynamic updates to the algorithms performing speaker control and Acoustic Echo Cancellation functions, which radically improves overall system performance.
With AudioSmart inside, users can hear what others are saying, speak naturally and listen to multimedia content at higher volume levels. AudioSmart technology enables the use of Automatic Speech Recognition for dictation, virtual assistant applications (such as Cortana and Hello Google) and much more.
At Computex, Conexant's high fidelity voice and audio processing solutions will be on display for Windows/Android notebooks, tablets, all-in-one PCs, headsets, USB docking solutions, voice interactive smart home/speaker applications, Smart TVs, and set-top boxes.
Computex Taipei attendees are encouraged to stop by Conexant's suite #1022-10F at the Grand Hyatt Taipei during the show to view a demo and see the new audio CODEC features in action.
Saleel Awsare, Conexant vice president and general manager
Photo: Company
Conexant's AudioSmart technology delivers a superior audio experience for end users
Photo: Company
