Industry’s lowest power 'Always Listening' voice recognition

15th December 2014

Nat Bowers

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Targeting the growing IoT category of devices, Lattice Semiconductor has announced the availability of human voice detection and command recognition IP for smartphones and other portable devices. Implemented in the iCE40 family of mobile FPGAs, the IPs enable manufacturers to improve the user experience of their mobile devices with voice activation capabilities and maximise battery life by minimising false wake-up triggers to the processor.

The IPs provide near zero latency response to specific, high use commands at power consumption about two-thirds less than that of competitors. The small solutions (36-ball, 0.35mm pitch, 2.1x2.1mm) can be used in even the smallest mobile and IoT devices.

The rapidly expanding number of IoT devices is projected to reach 26bn by 2020, according to the analyst firm Gartner. Lattice’s solutions are suited for a growing number of these IoT devices, which must minimise power consumption while maximising sensor reliability and performance.

Joy Wrigley, Product Line Manager, Lattice Semiconductor, comments: “Accurate and reliable voice detection and command recognition is important for today’s smartphones and other mobile devices, but sound processing with a power hungry processor quickly drains batteries when random sounds are misinterpreted as human speech. Further, user experience is diminished when devices do not properly capture commands. Lattice’s low power, near-zero latency voice solutions alleviate these issues so manufacturers can improve the reliability of their devices’ voice activated functions while extending battery life.”

Silicon samples and both voice IP are available immediately.