Cadence and Sensory Reduce Voice Activation Power Dissipation in Mobile Devices to Less than 17 MicroWatts

SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS), a leader in global electronic design innovation, and Sensory today announced that they have further lowered the power consumption of their industry-leading, ultra-low power DSP-based voice activation solution, which is an ideal complement to other always-on functions such as sensor fusion-enabled context awareness and face activation. Consuming less than 17mW when implemented in a 28nm low-power process, the Cadence® Tensilica® HiFi Mini Audio/Voice DSP IP running the Sensory TrulyHandsfree™ solution consumes 33 percent less power than the previous version and forms an ideal offload solution for application processors in smartphones, tablets, PCs, TVs, set-top boxes, and other devices and appliances that need always-on capabilities. The technology is scheduled to be demonstrated from Feb. 24-27, 2014, at the Cadence booth in hall 6, stand 6L36, at Mobile World Congress. 

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"A growing number of companies are employing always-on voice activation in their devices to provide a simplified and more natural hands-free user interface," stated Larry Przywara, Cadence's director of audio/voice IP marketing.  "By reducing the power an additional 33 percent, we're continuing to extend our technology leadership with ultra-low power consumption, making HiFi Mini with Sensory's TrulyHandsfree technology an obvious solution."

"Sensory's TrulyHandsfree solution provides the world's highest accuracy in real-world conditions for always-listening wakeup triggers and command sets. By working with Cadence and taking full advantage of the HiFi Mini DSP architecture, we were able to optimize our software to further drop the power in basic detection mode.  This includes trigger to search, user-defined triggers, speaker verification and identification, which make TrulyHandsfree a unique and market-proven solution," stated Bill Teasley, vice president of engineering at Sensory.

More information is available at http://www.sensoryinc.com/products/trulyhandsfreevoicecontrol.html

The Tensilica HiFi Mini Audio/Voice DSP IP core is optimized for the lowest power consumption always-on listening. It was designed to utilize compact 40-bit encoding, and it adds efficient 16-bit instructions for voice and audio codecs for maximum efficiency. As part of the HiFi family of DSPs, the IP core features more than 125 software packages that have been ported to the HiFi architecture by Cadence and more than 55 partners.  For more information on HiFi Mini, visit http://ip.cadence.com/ipportfolio/tensilica-ip/audio

About Cadence

Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today's integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence software, hardware, IP, and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products, and services is available here.

About Sensory, Inc.

Sensory, Inc. is the leader in speech technologies for consumer products, offering a complete line of IC and software-only solutions for speech recognition, speech synthesis, speaker verification, music synthesis and more. Sensory's products are widely deployed in consumer electronics applications including mobile, automotive, Bluetooth™ devices, toys, and various home electronics.  With its TrulyHandsfree™ voice control, Sensory has set the standard for mobile handset platforms' ultra-low power "always listening" technology for speech recognition, eliminating the need for touching the device. To date, more than 40 mobile phones have shipped with Sensory's TrulyHandsfree™ technology, and many more leading OEMs are expected to release Sensory technologies such as wake-up triggers, command and control, speaker verification, and user-defined triggers. Visit www.sensoryinc.com.

© 2014 Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Cadence, Tensilica and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. TrulyHandsfree is a trademark of Sensory, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are those of their respective holders.

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SOURCE Cadence Design Systems, Inc.