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Synaptics had to add voice or close up?
Biometric interface technology company Synaptics (NASDAQ:SYNA) has announced an agreement to acquire Conexant Systems for $341 million in cash and stock.
Concurrent with the deal, it also will acquire the Multimedia Business Solutions of Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) for $95 million in cash.
The two deals will spearhead Synaptics’ initiative to penetrate the promising consumer IoT via voice- and audio-based human interface markets.
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We are very excited to have quickly closed on this important acquisition and be able to immediately leverage the added voice and audio solutions to pursue the growing opportunities in consumer IoT. With the broadened portfolio of technologies and products, we will not only diversify our customer base, but also provide our customers more value-add. We look forward to working with our global partners to deliver a full range of solutions to our core mobile, automotive, and PC markets, and now for consumer IoT,” said Rick Bergman, President and CEO, Synaptics.
Synaptics will provide further information regarding the acquisition during its scheduled earnings conference call on Thursday, August 3, 2017. Please refer to the call details below.
Investor Call:
Last edited:
19 minutes ago
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Conexant Showcases Next-Gen Voice as an Interface and USB-C Headset Solutions at CES 2017
by Conexant | Jan 4, 2017 | Press Release |
![[IMG]](https://conexant.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/pr_f_ces-2017.jpg)
At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, Conexant will educate the CE industry about new hardware and software solutions designed to enable new voice-enabled AI assistant devices and next-gen USB-C type headphones
LAS VEGAS and IRVINE, Calif., January 4, 2017 – Conexant, a leading provider of audio and voice technology solutions that enable a more natural user experience, today announced that it will be showcasing its latest embedded hardware and software solutions designed to make it easy for CE manufacturers to develop new high-performance voice-enabled products and USB-C digital headphones.
At CES 2017, Conexant will be showcasing its recently announced two-microphone voice input processor development kit for Alexa Voice Service that it developed jointly with Amazon. Additionally, Conexant is announcing that its next-generation AudioSmart 3.0 voice input processing technology is the first two microphone solution to pass Microsoft’s stringent requirements for ideal Cortana v2.0 Premium Far-Field voice processing. Both of these developments further build upon the company’s leading position in the voice as an interface market, and expand on other recent successes, such as being the first solutions provider to enable a natural language capable AI assistant for the Korean market that offers excellent noise robustness and far-field performance. Conexant’s next-generation AudioSmart voice processing solutions have become the de facto standard for developing CE devices capable of providing excellent far-field voice performance and unrivaled speech recognition accuracy for cloud AI engines like Amazon Alexa, Okay Google, Microsoft Cortana and others.
“Voice as an interface is the hottest trend in the CE market, and has solidified its position as the future of human to machine interaction. Conexant is no stranger to voice input processing. In fact, our voice solutions are regarded as the industry’s best, and we’ve helped dozens of leading manufactures around the world ship millions of noise robust, far-field voice capable devices across several categories,” said Saleel Awsare, President of Conexant.
In addition to helping CE manufactures dramatically improve performance of, and reduce time to market for, new voice-enabled products in all categories, Conexant will also be showcasing its latest CODEC solutions that redefine what headphones are capable of.
Designed to give headphone and headset manufacturers a competitive edge in the emerging USB-C headphone category, and help the $13 billion headphone and headset industry confidently transition away from analog audio, Conexant’s USB-C CODECs enable headphones to benefit from having power and a digital audio signal available to them, as well as the ability to transmit data directly from the cable. Unlocking the potential for significant innovation in the booming headphone market, Conexant’s AudioSmart USB-C CODECs enable brands to deliver their signature sound quality uniformly across all devices, while also delivering powerful advanced features including Voice Control, Active Noise Cancellation, Noise Suppression, Wind Noise Cancellation, Smart Voice Pickup, and more.
“This year at CES, Conexant will be showcasing how its latest solutions can be utilized by manufacturers to not only build incredibly high-performance voice-enabled devices and feature-rich USB-C headphones, but dramatically reduce time to market and engineering costs associated with creating these products. Conexant doesn’t just provide the industry with powerful embedded solutions, it provides expertise in engineering. We help our customers maximize the benefits offered by our solutions, enabling them to innovate class-leading products with unrivaled performance.” Awsare continued.
Who: Conexant
What: Showcasing next-generation voice as an interface technologies and next-generation USB-C headphone CODEC solutions at CES 2017
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Synaptics Calls for Voice Standards
CEO says emerging market lacks ease of use
Rick Merritt
7/31/2017 00:01 AM EDT
“You don’t want 15 flavors of home assistants communicating in different ways. We need standards such as standard commands. You don’t want to learn different digital languages,” Bergman said. “It’s a little early, but maybe the ultimate vision is that AI gets so good it’s smart enough to figure commands out independent of device types,” he added.
An analyst agreed, noting consumer Internet of Things markets have developed more slowly that predicted, in part due to poor ease-of-use.
“Voice interfaces help, but natural-language processing is a misnomer. There is nothing natural about talking to today’s devices,” said Mike Demler, a senior analyst with the Linley Group.
Demler gave an example of a voice device that failed to respond to a simple request. His wife found from research online that it required use of the word “to” before the name of the device.
“I needed to say, ‘Play jazz to bedroom,’” Demler said. “Right now these devices are teaching us to speak their language rather than the other way around,” he added.
The good news is the market is moving. Conexant claims it has as many as 60 design wins for its far-field voice chip set. They include an HP PC, Harmon Kardon speakers and an LG refrigerator.
“There are so many potential applications — car speakers, lighting, thermostats, TVs, set tops…the nice part is we can participate in various ecosystems” such as services from Amazon, Baidu, Samsung and SK Telecom, Bergman said.
It’s a crowded field with Intel, Mediatek, Nvidia, NXP, Qualcomm, RDA Microelectronics, Realtek and Texas Instruments already engaged.
“We felt comfortable Conexant’s far-field technology and other audio algorithms were best in class. Its tough stuff to do, and they’ve worked on it for a decade,” Bergman said.
Next page: A toothpick-shaped touch-display driver
![[IMG]](https://m.eet.com/content/images/eetimes/Smart%20Assistant%20Shipments%20x%20800_1501464106.png)
Sources project nearly 25 million smart speakers and other personal assistants could ship this year. Click to enlarge. (Images: Synaptics)
commentary- regular readers are aware of the fast pace of the M & A related to voice. It is heating up and just won't stop. It has to be on the work bench or you cannot expect to be around long? There is a relationship between Voice and AI. The best players have AI on the bench along with voice, so they can put them together.
![[IMG]](http://m.eet.com/content/images/eetimes/Smart%20Assistant%20Shipments%20x%20800_1501464106.png)
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