CEVA and VisiSonics Bring 3D Spatial Audio to True Wireless Earbuds and Headphones for the Ultimate Hearing Experience

Companies collaborate to develop high precision 3D spatial audio embedded solution optimized for hearables, combining RealSpace® 3D audio software from VisiSonics with CEVA’s low power audio and sensor hub DSPs and MotionEngine™ head tracking algorithms

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., – September 23, 2020 – CEVA, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEVA), the leading licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies, and VisiSonics, a developer of best-in-class, patented 3D spatial audio technologies, announced today 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). 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 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.

“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,” said 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,“ said 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. For more information on CEVA's audio and voice product offerings, visit https://www.ceva-dsp.com/app/audio-voice-and-speech/.

About VisiSonics

VisiSonics leverages world-class scientific discovery to add a third dimension to the sound you hear electronically, bringing 3D sound to gaming, virtual reality, and entertainment (movies and music) platforms. VisiSonics technologies for the rendering, capture and personalization of 3D sound are being licensed by leading companies for incorporation in their products. For more information, please visit www.visisonics.com.

About CEVA, Inc.

CEVA is the leading licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies. We offer Digital Signal Processors, AI processors, wireless platforms and complementary software for sensor fusion, image enhancement, computer vision, voice input and artificial intelligence, all of which are key enabling technologies for a smarter, connected world. We partner with semiconductor companies and OEMs worldwide to create power-efficient, intelligent and connected devices for a range of end markets, including mobile, consumer, automotive, robotics, industrial and IoT. Our ultra-low-power IPs include comprehensive DSP-based platforms for 5G baseband processing in mobile and infrastructure, advanced imaging and computer vision for any camera-enabled device and audio/voice/speech and ultra-low power always-on/sensing applications for multiple IoT markets. For sensor fusion, our Hillcrest Labs sensor processing technologies provide a broad range of sensor fusion software and IMU solutions for AR/VR, robotics, remote controls, and IoT. For artificial intelligence, we offer a family of AI processors capable of handling the complete gamut of neural network workloads, on-device. For wireless IoT, we offer the industry’s most widely adopted IPs for Bluetooth (low energy and dual mode), Wi-Fi 4/5/6 (802.11n/ac/ax) and NB-IoT. Visit us at www.ceva-dsp.com .