CEVA and VisiSonics Offer 3D Spatial Audio Development for True Wireless Earbuds and Headphones

September 24 2020, 00:25
CEVA and VisiSonics, a developer of patented 3D spatial audio technologies, announced that the companies have collaborated closely together to develop a comprehensive 3D spatial audio solution for embedded devices, including true wireless audio (TWS) earbuds, headphones and other hearables. The collaboration combines VisiSonics' RealSpace 3D audio software optimized for CEVA’s low power audio and sensor hub DSPs together with CEVA’s MotionEngine head-tracking algorithms running on its BNO080 9-axis System in Package (SiP). 
 

Since Apple unveiled the free firmware update to its AirPods Pro wireless earbuds featuring a spectacular implementation of spatial audio with precise head-tracking, thanks to the built-in sensors, everything TWS brand on earth called their technology vendors to see how can they offer anything remotely similar. The CEVA partnership with VisiSonics meets that exact demand, even if requiring completely new designs from those manufacturers. The result is a high precision real-time 3D audio solution for System-on-Chip (SoC) vendors, OEMs and ODMs looking to provide the ultimate hearing experience for VR, AR and the new generation of motion-aware earbuds where 3D audio enhances the overall user experience.

VisiSonics RealSpace 3D Embedded for Headphones solution incorporates a suite of algorithms that give the listener a feeling of being present in an actual three-dimensional acoustic scene. This patented and proprietary technology allows one to precisely place auditory objects in virtual auditory space including both ambisonics and object based input, as envisaged in the Dolby Atmos and MPEG-H standards. It also enables injection of personalized head related transfer functions (HRTFs) and interfaces with CEVA MotionEngine head tracking to give rock solid images of the auditory scene. CEVA’s powerful audio and sensor hub DSPs, including the CEVA-X2, CEVA-BX1, CEVA-BX2 and SensPro family, enable this full suite of algorithms to run seamlessly in an extremely low power footprint.
 
The CEVA/Hillcrest Labs BNO080/085 is a 9-axis System in Package (SiP) which enables rapid development of sensor-enabled Augmented Reality AR, immersive and spatial audio applications.

"CEVA’s broad success in low power audio DSPs is self-evident, having powered billions of devices from many of the world’s leading OEMs," says Dr. Ramani Duraiswami, CEO, VisiSonics. "By partnering with them to bring our RealSpace 3D Audio technology to headsets and hearables powered by their DSPs, with the ability to offer our state-of-the-art spatial audio personalization to the end user, we can accelerate the adoption of this technology in mobile applications, and bring the power of immersive 3D audio to everyone."

"VisiSonics’ RealSpace 3D audio technology provides an incredible listening experience and we’re pleased to collaborate with them to further enhance the performance with our audio/sensor hub DSPs and 3D head tracking software," says Moshe Sheier, Vice President of Marketing at CEVA. "The use of contextually-aware audio for mobile and wearables is set to grow exponentially in the coming years on the back of 5G, and together with VisiSonics, we can help OEMs and ODMs leverage high precision 3D audio in their hearables to ride this wave."

CEVA's scalable audio and sensor hub DSPs are optimized for sound processing applications ranging from always-on voice control up to multiple sensors fusion. They have been specifically designed to tackle multi-microphone speech processing use-cases, high quality audio playback and post-processing, and on-device sound neural network implementations. In addition, a large 3rd party ecosystem of audio/voice software, hardware and development tools companies have optimized their solutions for CEVA DSPs, for a wide array of use cases and applications. 
www.visisonics.com | www.realspace3daudio.com
www.ceva-dsp.com
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