DSP Speech Processors Target Hands-Free Market

Touted as the industry's highest performance, full-duplex speech processing solution on a single chip, the ADSP-21ESP202 series DSP speech processors is designed with an eye on the hands-free communications market. This series of mixed-signal, programmable DSPs are said to be optimized for speech applications such as speech-enabled PDAs, wireless local-loop systems and Bluetooth-enabled headsets. The company believes the series is particularly well suited for the rapidly growing hands-free car kit market, where the goal is to ensure safe full-duplex cellular communications while driving.
The devices integrate an ADSP-218x, 16-bit fixed-point core, RAM, ROM, dual sigma delta voice-band codecs, and other analog peripherals. This level of integration greatly reduces the total system cost while increasing reliability, the company notes. Additionally, designers can offer baseline functionality in ROM such as noise and echo cancellation, while differentiating their products with value-added features in RAM. Also, the sigma delta converters are claimed to ensure the highest level of voice quality possible.
The ADSP-21ESP202 series is supported by the ADI Visual DSP code generation and simulation tool suite.The devices are sampling now at a price of $15.95 each, and production quantities will be available in the fall of 2000.