Audio appears to be becoming a burgeoning trend in the mobile industry, and at Computex 2011, the vendors were out in force to showcase how best to bring the beats to cell phones.
Local Taiwanese company C-Media, widely known for its audio-playback hardware for PC and USB audio devices, demonstrated its wares, designed specifically to improve noise cancellation technology in mobile handsets.
Noise suppression is a common feature in a majority of modern handsets, however, there is generally believed to be much room for improvement. Enter C-Media with its Xear VoClear Enivornmental Noise Cancellation (ENC) technology, which claims to cancel up to 40dB of ambient noise, and can purportedly even function well enough to hold conversations in bars and noisy clubs with typical 80dB sound pressure levels – a real innovation, if the product rings true.
Existing adaptive noise suppression implementations commonly rely on dual-mic fixed beam forming technology or cyber acoustics analytical methodologies. C-Media, however, has implemented a near-field spatial filtering algorithm that simply captures only higher fidelity local audio. This is achieved by using two microphones, one to capture voice and the other to sample ambient noise, including amplitude, time latency and a head-transfer function. Filtering can then be achieved ensuring the voice audio is only transmitted.
The product has been packaged into a tiny footprint low-power CM7000 voice processor system on chip (SOC) that can be easily integrated into mobile phones, handsets and headsets.
The CM7000 won the best choice award at Computex 2011 in the IC and components category, and certainly sounds like music to our ears.
