Spansion Announces Partnership with Nuance to Accelerate Voice Recognition Innovation for the Embedded Market

SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Spansion Inc. (NYSE: CODE) today announced a partnership with Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) to accelerate voice recognition innovation for embedded technologies.  As leading innovators of semiconductor products and voice recognition respectively, Spansion and Nuance are working together on enhancing the responsiveness and quality of voice recognition for embedded solutions addressing the automotive, gaming and consumer electronics applications.

Voice capabilities are becoming a core part of the mobile user interface, with new features rapidly coming to market that require natural language understanding and multi-linguality.  These systems, notably those deployed within automobiles and consumer electronics, require high performance and reliable memory to return accurate results quickly. 

With these market demands in mind, Spansion is developing programmable system solutions that leverage its non-volatile memory technology that are designed to improve the speed and accuracy of reading data for systems that are memory, processing and MIPS intensive.  Spansion will be integrating Nuance's voice recognition technology as part of these systems, and initially deploying them in automotive environments where increased processing and memory are critical for in-car entertainment, connectivity, navigation and safety technologies. By integrating Nuance's voice capabilities, automotive manufacturers will be able to further minimize visual-manual distractions.  Additionally, Nuance and Spansion are working together to integrate their products to improve the quality and latency of speech search for accurate data. The companies have combined their latest technology capabilities on a demo platform, which is currently under evaluation by several automotive makers and suppliers.

"Voice technology must be thoughtfully integrated as part of the in-car system in totality – it can't be an afterthought.  With our voice technologies integrated as part of the Spansion chips, Nuance and Spansion are able to further drive a synergy between hardware and software solutions that will enable auto manufacturers to take full advantage of the speed and power needed for today's embedded automotive systems," said Arnd Weil, vice president and general manager, Nuance Automotive.

Spansion will also integrate Nuance's voice technology as part of systems tailored for the gaming and consumer electronics market, giving OEMs the ability to bring to market faster voice recognition processing for both embedded command and control.

"Widespread adoption of voice recognition is accelerating as people are increasingly leveraging unique interfaces on phones, tablets, in cars and now gaming and consumer electronics devices," said Alvin Wong, vice president of marketing of Spansion's Programmable Systems Solutions. "We look forward to partnering with Nuance to further advance voice user interface through the combination of our programmable system solutions with Nuance's robust embedded voice technologies, ultimately benefitting our industry-leading partners in embedded markets."

Resources:

• Spansion Flash memory products:  http://www.spansion.com/Products/
• Spansion newsroom:  http://news.spansion.com/ 
• Spansion blog:  http://blog.spansion.com 
• Spansion on Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/Spansion 
• Spansion on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/Spansion

About Nuance

Nuance Communications, Inc. is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world.  Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance's proven applications.  For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.

About Spansion

Spansion (NYSE: CODE) is a leading provider of the Flash memory technology at the heart of the world's electronics systems, powering everything from the routers that run the internet to the highly interactive and immersive consumer and automotive electronics that are enriching people's daily lives. Spansion's broad and differentiated Flash memory product portfolio, award-winning MirrorBit charge-trapping technology, and industry leading service and support are enabling customers to achieve greater efficiency and success in their target markets. For more information, visit http://www.spansion.com.

Spansion(R), the Spansion logo, MirrorBit(R), and combinations thereof, are trademarks and registered trademarks of Spansion LLC in the United States and other countries. Other names used are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Spansion Inc.