January 9, 2019 —. Microchip Technology Inc., via its Microsemi Corporation subsidiary, has announced that its AcuEdge ZLK38AVS Development Kit for Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) introduces far-field voice pick up and the flexibility to build devices with multiple mic array configurations.
As an audio front-end development kit with one-mic hands-free and two or three-mic far-field configurations qualified by Amazon, the solution features the ZL38063 audio processor which includes a 300 MHz DSP and dedicated hardware accelerators for voice processing. It also features Stereo Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), which enables barge-in recognition to improve the consumer experience in extreme audio playback environments.
Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) and third-party developers can use the development kit to achieve their design criteria across a range of applications and form-factor constraints. Available microphone configurations include:
- One-mic configuration –Offers hands-free voice coverage for products where form-factor or cost constraints preclude the use of a multi-microphone array.
- Two and three-mic linear (180-degree) configurations– Designed for sound bars, smart plugs and switches, set-top-boxes or other applications typically positioned against a wall that benefit from 180-degree far-field coverage.
- Three-mic triangular (360-degree) configuration – Also with far-field coverage qualified by Amazon, this configuration is well suited for applications that may require user interaction from any direction such as portable speakers, wide-angle IP cameras and voice-enabled Wi-Fi routers.
The development kit enables far-field speech recognition in the presence of interfering noise sources, including device playback and external noise sources. The field-programmable, field-upgradable solution features signal processing algorithms proven to improve both local trigger detection performance and cloud speech recognition accuracy, while the multi-microphone configurations include Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation to indicate where the primary voice sound source is located.
The development kit includes a ZL38063 audio processor that connects directly to a Raspberry Pi 3B with plastics and mounting hardware to simulate a typical, recommended end-application mic-speaker arrangement. It supports all microphone options and includes an LED ring to report the detected sound location, as well as a high-quality speaker that is representative of a typical smart speaker application. Microchip has audio labs and tuning facilities located worldwide that support customers from design through Amazon certification.
