The reference design is not dead! This is still a very valuable technique to highlight new technologies and give developers an easier way to start a design, as well as guide existing customers towards using these new products. Knowles’ new reference design brings together its hybrid driver and SiSonic MEMS microphones alongside a Qualcomm QCC5144 […]
Although it may not be clearly visible to the car users, Cerence owns a large market share of embedded automotive voice assistants, with many automotive OEMs as customers. When it comes to voice assistants in automotive, there are two implementations – one is cloud-based and the other is embedded. While cloud-based voice assistant systems are […]
BMW sticks with Cerence to build next car voice assistant Read More »
SAR had an opinion piece published in EE Times this week, full details here. The article discusses the future of headphones, considering what is next on the horizon, what we and others in the industry are calling Headphone 3.0. Essentially, we are expected next gen headphones to evolve evermore into ear-worn computers rather than audio […]
Hear This: ‘Ear-Worn Computing’ Around the Corner Read More »
Nordic semiconductor is a well-known company in Bluetooth technology and their Bluetooth chips are widely used in many consumer devices such as voice remote, smart watch and smart speaker, etc. Nordic’s nRF5340 is an attractive Bluetooth SoC although it is missing the backend audio part so the implementation requires an external audio CODEC for a […]
Sennheiser uses Nordic Semiconductor Bluetooth LE Audio technology Read More »
Lofelt announced on its website “Lofelt is now embarking on a new adventure, and we will sunset our products on July 7th, 2022”, this was a bit cryptic and left us wondering what is happening here. WSJ announced that Meta has acquired Lofelt, for an undisclosed sum. Now, did Meta purchase Lofelt after it had […]
Meta acquires Lofelt Read More »
It looks like Bluetooth LE (BLE) audio is making a significant impact on TWS SoC providers such as Airoha, as it is believed to be a game changer in the wireless audio industry. TWS SoC providers consider BLE as an important milestone due to the benefits that it will bring. Power efficiency and better sound […]
Airoha sets 10-year milestone with Bluetooth LE Audio certification Read More »
In a recent TWS market study, SAR finds that the use of RISC-V cores is increasing. The RISC-V is license free core although one has sole responsibility to make the core run without any technical issues. Fabless TWS SoC companies such as mid-to-low tier IC companies may find RISC-V cores appealing due to the cost […]
Optimizing PPA with RISC-V custom extensions in TWS earbuds Read More »
Netflix recently announced the availability of spatial audio to all devices, but this feature does not require a surround speaker system as it is through a two channel audio configuration. Since it is two channel audio based, the availability of spatial audio will be rather wider unlike Dolby ATMOS also available in some of the […]
Netflix licenses Sennheiser’s AMBEO spatial audio technology Read More »
Congrats to Eric Vezzoli and his team on the announcement that gaming giant Razer will acquire haptics platform vendor Interhaptics. Razer has been investing in the use of haptics to enhance the gaming experience for a number of years, with products such as the Razer Nari Ultimate – a haptics enabled gaming headset and Razer […]
Razer acquires Interhaptics to drive Haptics ecosystem Read More »
As discussed in SAR’s study on MEMS speakers, automotive is one of the largest markets for speakers, with almost ½ billion speakers used per year. SAR is expecting MEMS speakers to start being used in automotive applications from 2023, in small volumes as OEMs trial their usage. MEMS speakers could enable OEM designers to try […]
USound MEMS speakers enable new audio in-vehicle experiences Read More »