Qualcomm Launches New, AI-Enabled Smart Speaker Platform

Posted by Qualcomm Technologies

Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM), today launched the new Qualcomm QCS400 SoC series. In these SoCs, Qualcomm Technologies brings its unique high-performance, low-power compute capabilities together with its unrivaled legacy in audio technology – to help deliver highly optimized, AI-enabled solutions that are designed for smarter audio and IoT applications.

The QCS400 SoCs are built to deliver evolved premium audio experiences throughout the home. They tightly integrate high-performance processing, the Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence (AI Engine), connectivity, and multiple advanced audio and visual display capabilities in single, power-optimized chip architecture.

For users of smart speakers, the QCS400 SoCs support a more robust voice assistant experience with faster, smarter voice UI, even in noisy environments compared to our previous SoCs– including AI-based local automatic speech recognition, low-power, multi-keyword far-field voice pickup with beam-forming and echo cancellation, and support for cloud-based voice assistants.

“These new SoCs raise the bar on both feature integration and power performance for smart audio compared to our previous technology. This will help manufacturers to more easily overcome significant technical challenges and build smarter speakers and assistance with more intuitive voice UI, connected user experiences and exceptional sound quality.” said Rahul Patel, senior vice president and general manager, connectivity, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “The next generation of smart audio products must be robust, highly interoperable, feature-rich, and smart, yet extremely power efficient. Qualcomm Technologies helps to meet these needs with our new SoCs, which are unique and comprehensively integrated to combine enhanced compute, AI acceleration, and low-latency audio distribution in a single chipset. These integrated solutions are designed to reduce development time of next-generation smart speakers, home assistants and soundbars.”

Utilizing the latest Dolby advancements in sound technology, Dolby Atmos is designed to deliver impressive clarity, richness, detail, and depth. Dolby Atmos helps to bring consumers inside the story and action as the sounds of people, places, things, and music come alive. This high level of integration helps OEMs to more efficiently and economically create smarter audio products with richer sound quality, extended battery life and improved voice assistance capabilities

“The Qualcomm® QCS400 SoC series will enable our sound bar and AVR partners to bring Dolby Atmos experiences to more people,” said Mahesh Balakrishnan, vice president, Enhanced Audio Experiences, Dolby Laboratories. “Through this close working relationship, we are expanding the availability of best in class audio experiences.”

“We are pleased to work with Qualcomm Technologies to support our flagship immersive audio decoder, DTS:X, for their new line of SoCs for premium sound bars and Audio-Video Receivers and look toward to delivering additional DTS audio solutions on the QCS400 SoC series,” said Joanna Skrdlant, general manager, home and solutions licensing at Xperi.

With these new SoCs, Qualcomm Technologies is helping people enjoy great voice and audio, virtually everywhere. Advanced connectivity with tri-radio coexistence and low-latency audio streaming mean users can enjoy superior music listening almost anywhere in their home. Power improvements driven on the QCS400 series support up to 25 times longer standby with voice wakeup and extended ‘un-plugged’ battery life compared to our previous technology, so people can take their speakers with them into the yard or even further afield and enjoy playback with voice commands for hours at a time.

Key features of the QCS400 SoC Series include:

• Highly-integrated, yet flexible, single-chip architecture – with the Qualcomm® AI Engine, dual DSPs and up to four processor cores, engineered specifically for audio applications and designed to deliver substantial power efficiencies, performance improvements and flexibility for advanced feature innovation.
• On-board connectivity – industry-leading Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Support for Qualcomm® aptX™ Adaptive designed to deliver low-latency audio streaming in the room or throughout the home, and tightly synchronized audio and visual content for a superior entertainment experience. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee coexistence is designed to allow for control of virtually all types of smart home devices, helping OEMs to design products to serve as hubs and interfaces to the smart home.
• Truly rich and immersive audio – up-to 32 channels of integrated audio processing, support for Dolby Atmos immersive audio and DTS:X® as well as compatibility with Qualcomm® DDFA™ amplifier technology and aptX audio.
• Improved Voice UI – Utilizing our far field voice, multi-channel echo cancellation, and high performance, low-power multi-keyword detection algorithms (Qualcomm® Voice Assist), products built on the QCS400 SoCs can capture voice commands even during high-volume audio playback or from further afield.
• AI Engine – To meet the growing demands of audio processing, QCS400 SoCs support the Qualcomm AI Engine for enabling high-performance, energy efficient AI acceleration including a quad-core CPU, Qualcomm® Adreno™ GPU and Qualcomm® Hexagon™ DSP with Hexagon Vector extensions. The Qualcomm AI Engine offers support for myriad neural network frameworks including Tensorflow, PyTorch and ONNX, as well as the Qualcomm® Neural Processing SDK for easily executing AI algorithms on device. This advanced AI hardware and software suite helps smart speaker and sound bar OEMs deliver a variety of robust AI-powered voice UI features.
• Reduced development time – Designed specifically to support reduced development time and cost, the new chipsets will be available at multiple tiers with a common architecture, allowing implementation across multiple product lines, to better utilize development resources.

The QSC400 SoCs are highly flexible and customizable using Qualcomm Technologies’ Audio Development Kit (ADK) and the Qualcomm® AI Engine can be utilized by developers through the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ Neural Processing Engine (SNPE) Software Development Kit (SDK). Developers have the freedom to choose the cloud-based voice assistant that best suits their product vision.

Qualcomm Smart Audio Platform 400

To help streamline the process for developing a smart speaker, Qualcomm Technologies is also announcing the Qualcomm® Smart Audio Platform 400, available as a comprehensive, customizable development kit and example design, built around the Qualcomm® QCS400 SoCs. The Qualcomm Smart Audio Platform 400 is the evolution of Qualcomm Technologies’ unique end-to-end solution designed specifically to help reduce the materials cost and development time associated with creating next-generation smart speakers.―CT Bureau