3G Speech Recognition IC Cuts Costs, Increases Accuracy

The cost of implementing voice dialing to hands-free car kits, telephone handsets, PDAs or other personal electronics devices is expected to drop substantially thanks to chips such as the Voice Dialer 364, a third generation speech recognition IC. According to the company, the device offers lower power operation, numerous on-chip features that drive down system cost by more than 20%, and uses Sensory Speech 5.0 technology that reportedly increases accuracy by 40%. The improvements in the new chip provide a feedback time of under 290 ms, with a 32-word speaker dependent vocabulary. The device uses a three-wire interface and is designed for use as a slave-chip controlled by an external host processor. It also offers built-in Flash and serial EEPROM interface drivers for storing voice recordings and phone numbers. Other features include a 60-name telephone directory, digit dialing, user-friendly speech synthesis prompting, digital recording and playback, DTMF tone generation, and speaker dependent recognition. The IC is available either in die form or in a 64-pin 10x10 TQFP package. Pricing in die form is $2.65 each/100,000.