CEVA, Beken and VisiSonics Announce Reference Design for 3D Spatial Audio in Headsets and TWS Earbuds

Companies collaborate to bring complete 3D spatial audio hardware and software solution to consumer electronics OEMs and ODMs

ROCKVILLE, MD, September 30, 2021 – CEVA, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEVA), the leading licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies, together Beken Corporation, a key player in wireless communication solutions, and VisiSonics, the technology leader in 3D spatial audio technologies, today announced the availability of a complete 3D audio reference design for the rapid deployment of headsets and True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds supporting spatial audio for use in gaming, multimedia and conferencing.

The reference design leverages Beken’s BK3288X Bluetooth Audio SoC series featuring the CEVA-X2 Audio DSP running VisiSonics’ RealSpace® 3D audio software, together with CEVA’s MotionEngine™ Hear head tracking algorithms. This highly-optimized hardware plus software solution offers OEMs and ODMs a cost-effective, ready-to-deploy SoC with best-in-class performance, using any audio encoding format, to introduce best-in-class 3D audio hearing experience for VR, AR and the new generation of motion-aware earbuds. The single chip-based reference design provides a self-sufficient 3D audio solution, fully residing on the headset side, eliminating the need for a 3D audio rendering engine on the host device, which also enables a lower latency design.

“We are pleased to partner with CEVA and Beken to create a reference design that includes our industry-leading RealSpace 3D Audio technology,” said Dr. Ramani Duraiswami, CEO, VisiSonics. “Our joint reference design offers consumer electronics OEMs and ODMs a complete hardware and software solution to add 3D spatial audio to their product line of headsets and TWS earbuds.”

“Over the past decade, we have been at the forefront of the wireless audio revolution, powering hundreds of millions of Bluetooth-enabled audio devices,” said Weifeng Wang, VP of Engineering, Beken Corporation. “Spatial audio brings the wireless audio user experience to the next level and we’re pleased to partner with CEVA and VisiSonics to make it easy for our customers to leverage this exciting new technology in a cost-effective, power-efficient turnkey offering. We look forward to see the innovative use cases that the mass market adoption of spatial audio will drive for the audio, gaming and AR/VR industries.”

“Spatial audio is an incredibly hot market right now, as the Android and PC ecosystems look to build on the industry momentum behind its use in music and gaming to create immersive audio experiences,” said Moshe Sheier, Vice President of Marketing at CEVA. “Our collaboration with Beken and VisiSonics aims to help OEMs and ODMs address this burgeoning market with a fully-featured, self-sufficient turnkey solution for spatial audio that can be rapidly deployed in headsets and earbuds.”

Availability

The 3D Audio Reference Design is available now directly from CEVA, and the associated software package combining VisiSonics’ RealSpace 3D audio with CEVA’s MotionEngine™ Hear is available now for licensing by CEVA and VisiSonics.

About VisiSonics

VisiSonics is a 3D spatial audio technology company with a complete suite of products that enhances end-users’ performance and overall experience by increasing situation or spatial awareness, reducing listener fatigue and improving reaction time. Our offer includes 3D audio rendering, capture and analysis, and personalization software as well as acoustic visualization and measurement solutions. VisiSonics’ physics-based RealSpace 3D audio technology is licensed by consumer electronics brands, semi-conductor manufacturers, game developers and the military. For more information, please visit www.VisiSonics.com.

About Beken

Beken Corporation (SSE: 603068) was founded in December 2004 by a technical team from Silicon Valley of the United States. It focuses on application field of intelligent transportation and smart home, which is a well-known listed enterprise in the design field of wireless connection chip design for the Internet of Things in China.

Since it was established, the company has complete wireless communication product platform after 16 years of accumulation of products and technology, supporting rich wireless protocols and communication standards. It provides chips of wireless connection system level (SOC) with low power consumption and high performance for RF receiver and transmitter and integrated microprocessor for domestic and foreign customers including many world-famous brands, and also provides complete wireless communication solutions for intelligent transportation and Internet of Things and other applications. Visit www.bekencorp.com.

About CEVA, Inc.

CEVA is the leading licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies for a smarter, safer, connected world. We provide Digital Signal Processors, AI engines, wireless platforms, cryptography cores and complementary software for sensor fusion, image enhancement, computer vision, voice input and artificial intelligence. These technologies are offered in combination with our Intrinsix turnkey chip design services, helping our customers address their most complex and time-critical integrated circuit design projects. Leveraging our technologies and chip design skills, many of the world’s leading semiconductors, system companies and OEMs create power-efficient, intelligent, secure and connected devices for a range of end markets, including mobile, consumer, automotive, robotics, industrial, aerospace & defense and IoT.

Our DSP-based solutions include platforms for 5G baseband processing in mobile, IoT and infrastructure, advanced imaging and computer vision for any camera-enabled device, 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 inertial measurement unit (“IMU”) solutions for markets including hearables, wearables, AR/VR, PC, robotics, remote controls and IoT. For wireless IoT, our platforms for Bluetooth (low energy and dual mode), Wi-Fi 4/5/6 (802.11n/ac/ax), Ultra-wideband (UWB) and NB-IoT are the most broadly licensed connectivity platforms in the industry.

Visit us at https://www.ceva-dsp.com/ .