Applied Brain Research Announces General Availability of Its Speech AI SDK for Zephyr RTOS on the Alif Ensemble Family of Processors

On-device streaming speech recognition and text-to-speech for low-power edge devices; Niagara ASR to be demonstrated in the Alif Semiconductor booth at electronica 2026 in Munich

WATERLOO, ON, Nov. 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Applied Brain Research (ABR) today announced the general availability of its speech AI software development kit (SDK) on Zephyr RTOS for the Alif Semiconductor Ensemble® family of edge AI processors. The SDK brings the most capable streaming speech recognition available, together with natural-sounding text-to-speech, running entirely on-device with no cloud connection required.

The SDK combines:

• Niagara ASR: full-vocabulary streaming speech recognition with low latency, continuously transcribing speech as it is spoken.
• Nith TTS: natural-sounding, low-latency streaming speech synthesis.
• Native Zephyr RTOS support for battery-powered and air-gapped products.
• Support for ongoing model updates and expansion.

Voice interfaces on small devices have typically depended on a cloud connection or a larger application processor. ABR's state space model technology brings capable speech AI within the power and memory budgets of microcontroller-class silicon. On the Ensemble E8, Niagara ASR achieves 133 ms for first-audio to first-token average latency while consuming only 15 mW of active power above baseline, enabling always-available voice on devices where battery life is critical.

"The Alif Ensemble family pairs the low power that edge devices demand with the AI performance to run speech workloads in real time," said Kevin Conley, CEO of Applied Brain Research. "Using these capabilities, we achieved stunning real-time performance at incredibly low power consumption. With our SDK now available on Zephyr, this is a notable milestone for what developers can do on a microcontroller-class platform."

"Zephyr is increasingly the platform of choice for our customers, and voice is one of the most requested capabilities for battery-powered devices," said Mark Rootz, Vice President of Marketing at Alif Semiconductor. "ABR's SDK gives Ensemble developers a production-ready path to on-device speech recognition and text-to-speech, and we are pleased to show it running in our booth at electronica."

Availability and demonstration
The ABR SDK for Zephyr RTOS on the Alif Ensemble family is available now. Developers can register for an account and obtain a free evaluation license at dev.appliedbrainresearch.com. Niagara ASR will be demonstrated running live on the Ensemble E8 in the Alif Semiconductor booth, C5.170, at electronica 2026, November 10–13, Messe München.

About Applied Brain Research
Applied Brain Research develops and licenses AI software that uses its proprietary state space models specifically designed for embedded edge devices, enabling speech recognition, text-to-speech, translation, and natural language processing to run on-device within tight power and memory budgets. For more information, visit www.appliedbrainresearch.com.

About Alif Semiconductor
Alif Semiconductor is the leading provider of Next-Generation, AI-Enabled 32-bit microcontrollers that combine scalability, high compute performance with exceptional power efficiency. Alif's Ensemble and Balletto product families redefine what is possible at the edge by delivering on-device acceleration for AI, advanced security, rich functional integration, and flexible operating system support within ultra-low-power, small form-factor designs. By unifying compute, connectivity, and intelligent processing in a single architecture, Alif empowers developers to build the future of smart, always-on devices across consumer, industrial, and enterprise applications.

SOURCE Applied Brain Research Inc.