Audience Announces a New Voice Processor Offering Wideband HD Voice for Mobile Devices

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Audience, Inc., a global provider of intelligent voice and audio processing technology for mobile devices, today announced its latest generation earSmart™ voice processor that delivers wideband high-definition (HD) voice quality, while suppressing background noise, for clearer communications and the best calling experience in any environment.  

The eS310 chip is the first of the company's next-generation voice processors based on reverse-engineering the human hearing system.  Audience's earSmart chips distinguish and interpret sounds as people do naturally, to isolate the voice signal and suppress surrounding noise – from both ends of the call – to enable clear conversations and improve performance of speech-based services to work nearly anywhere.  The eS310 chip takes this intelligent voice processing further to deliver quality communications in 4G mobile phones and applications, improving call quality, VoIP, video calling, and more.  A typical mobile call delivers only a fraction of the frequency range of the human voice.  Wideband calls extend the frequency range of sound traveling over the mobile network, for higher quality voice transmission.  The eS310 chip also provides a wideband HD voice experience for mobile phone users on narrowband (2G or 3G) networks.

"The earSmart eS310 chip is our most comprehensive voice processing solution, bringing richer, life-like sound to mobile devices," said Peter Santos, president and chief executive officer, Audience.  "Based on a new hardware and systems architecture, the eS310 system-on-chip is the only voice processor that provides wideband non-stationary noise suppression across all usage modes, to remove noise from both ends of a mobile call, and deliver clear conversations for both the user and their calling party.  Combined with other voice enhancement features, the eS310 chip significantly increases voice quality and performance for the latest mobile communications applications, from speakerphone to video chat, for smartphones and tablets." 

The eS310 processor incorporates Audience's new high performance, low-power Audio DSP core that delivers twice the functionality with the same power consumption as provided in earlier products.  With this additional computational capacity over earlier generations, the eS310 voice processor is improving the voice experience across 4G wideband and 2G/3G networks and applications.  

Key features of the earSmart™ eS310 processor include:  

• Wideband and Narrowband Noise Suppression – the only processor that suppresses wideband stationary and non-stationary background noise, from both ends of a mobile call, for clear communications in any environment, across all mobile phone applications and usage modes.
• Wideband HD Listening Experience – delivers a wideband HD voice listening experience for mobile users connected to 2G and 3G mobile networks.
• Wideband Handheld Speakerphone Non-Stationary Noise Suppression – provides non-stationary noise suppression for handheld speaker phone applications, improving clarity for video calling, VoIP, voice memos, and more.
• Personalization and Accessibility – offers users selectable pre-set profiles to personalize the listening experience for mobile calls, tailoring sound quality to the user, and including an option to provide voice stretch, which slows a calling party's voice in real-time, to improve comprehension.
• Unique Sound Optimization – enhances sound quality by providing maximum loudness without distortion for small internal mobile device speakers, and matches sound equalization to multimedia content, such as music categories like rock, classical, etc.  
• Enhanced Integration Support – supporting the design and integration process for mobile equipment manufacturers, Audience offers its second-generation graphical design tool, AuViD 2.0, which allows manufacturers to easily tune and customize the audio features of the eS310 chip.
• Small Footprint:  the earSmart eS310 voice processor is provided in a highly compact 3.5mm x 3.5mm, BGA (0.4mm pitch) package that can fit any handset style or design and easily integrates into existing mobile phone architectures.  

Handsets featuring the new earSmart eS310 voice processor are expected to launch in the second quarter of 2011.

Audience earSmart intelligent voice processors are designed to advance the mobile voice experience across more handset features and applications and the technology continues to garner industry recognition.  The earSmart™ A1028 chip, introduced in October 2010, was recognized for its technological achievements and innovation by being named a shortlist nominee for the 2011 Global Mobile Awards, "Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough" by the GSMA.  Winners will be announced at the upcoming Mobile World Congress on February 15, 2011.

About Audience  

Audience is a leading global provider of intelligent voice and audio processors for the mobile marketplace, based on pioneering work to reverse-engineer human hearing.  The company's technology is redefining the mobile voice experience by enhancing call quality, and suppressing noise to enable clear communications in any environment and optimizing performance of speech-based applications.  Audience technology is featured in mobile handsets from leading manufacturers in markets across Asia-Pacific, Europe and the U.S.  The company was the Silver Winner in the 2008 Wall Street Journal "Technology Innovation Awards" and the Winner of the Semiconductor category.  It was also selected as the Most Innovative True Mobile Start-Up for the "2008 GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Awards." Audience is one of 34 founding member companies of the Open Handset Alliance and the only one with advanced noise suppression technology.  Investors in Audience include Vulcan Capital, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Tallwood Venture Capital and VentureTech Alliance. The company is based in Mountain View, California.  www.audience.com

SOURCE Audience, Inc.