CEVA Inc., a licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies and integrated IP solutions, and ASPEED Technology, have announced ASPEED has licensed and deployed the CEVA-BX1 audio/voice DSP in its second-generation Cupola360 SoC, AST1230 for smart cameras and video conferencing systems.
The companies also are collaborating to address challenging conferencing use cases with the availability of CEVA’s ClearVox multi-microphone noise reduction and acoustic echo cancellation audio front end (AFE) software. This software package is optimized for the CEVA-BX1 DSP, enhancing the intelligibility of voice conferencing systems and allowing voice assistants and hands-free control capabilities to be added.
ASPEED’s Chairman & President Chris Lin said, “Our second-generation Cupola360 SoC is our first product to incorporate real-time multi-image stitching video and powerful audio processing capabilities, making it perfect for video conferencing applications. Through the comprehensive cooperation between CEVA and ASPEED, our customers can enjoy the most superior video and audio functionality, and we are glad to have CEVA as our strong and trusted partner.”
ASPEED’s second-generation Cupola360 multi-image stitching video and audio SoC, AST1230, as well as the accompanying app, is designed for high performance video conferencing applications. With a focus on advanced smart cameras for spherical video conferencing applications, the AST1230 SoC features include a powerful image signal processor (ISP) and a smart layout processing engine.
Incorporating ASPEED’s trademarked Hyper-stitching technology, the AST1230 SoC is engineered to deliver extraordinary processing power for on-device real-time image stitching. Incorporating the high level programmable CEVA-BX1 DSP to tackle the most challenging audio/voice use cases, the AST1230 SoC offers exceptional power and thermal efficiency, making it ideal for a range of emerging IoT applications.
Additional features include eight, digital MIC inputs with audio processing algorithms, including far-field speech, beamforming, auto gain control (AGC), noise suppression and echo cancelation.
CEVA’s Vice President of Marketing Moshe Sheier said, “Video conferencing plays an increasingly critical role in most organizations and work-from-home scenarios today, and their underlying equipment is key to making the experience effortless and productive. We’re pleased to partner with ASPEED, one of the leaders in this space, to ensure that the voice experience of these systems is seamless and powerful, no matter the user environment. Our value-add ClearVox voice software illustrates the unique value we can bring to our customers with our hardware + software approach to IP, and we look forward to collaborating with ASPEED and their customers to introduce a new generation of smart conferencing systems to the market.”
The CEVA-BX1 processor combines efficient DSP compute capability with high-level programming and compact code size requirements of embedded applications. Using an 11-stage pipeline and 4-way VLIW micro-architecture, it offers parallel processing with a Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) ISA, widely used in neural networks inference, noise reduction and echo cancellation, as well as high accuracy sensor fusion algorithms.
The CEVA-BX1 is accompanied by a comprehensive software development tool chain, including an advanced LLVM compiler, Eclipse based debugger, DSP and neural network compute libraries, neural network frameworks support in the form of Tensorflow Lite Micro, and choice of Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS).
For more information, visit https://www.ceva-dsp.com/product/ceva-bx1-sound/.
