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dsp/mcuZONE Products for the week of January 5, 2009
LSI Corporation Says…
Echo Cancellation Software for High-Performance StarPro Media Processor Family
Rich feature set and outstanding echo cancellation provide enhanced voice quality for next-generation any-to-any communications
LSI Corporation has announced echo cancellation software for the LSI StarPro family of multicore media processors. Superior echo cancellation is critical to enhancing the quality of experience (QoE) of wireless, wireline and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services. LSI echo cancellation (ECAN) software provides carrier-grade performance and a complete feature set for high-quality, next-generation media gateways.
"Demand for VoIP is growing rapidly, but improved voice quality is crucial to maintaining the market’s momentum," said Will Strauss, principal analyst with Forward Concepts. "With the introduction of their ECAN technology, LSI offers a low-cost, high-performance solution for a broad spectrum of digital voice applications."
Incorporating innovations based on decades of company research has resulted in a state-of-the-art echo cancellation capability that will enable OEMs to meet the voice quality requirements of next-generation voice services. LSI ECAN software exceeds the ITU-G.168-2004 industry standard today and is optimized for use across enterprise, wireless and carrier applications.
Charlie Kawwas, vice president of marketing, Networking Components Group, LSI, said, "With the rapid growth of VoIP, the need for cost-effective carrier-grade solutions to enhance voice quality are of paramount importance. Our customers are using LSI ECAN, codec and DSP technologies to build the industry’s highest-performing media gateways now."
Voice quality is the key competitive differentiator for service providers and essential to the mass deployment of enterprise VoIP. LSI ECAN software provides a robust set of real-world VoIP communications features including a maximum tail length of 128ms, the ability to detect and compensate for up to three windows with the tail, rapid convergence, and 24ms of active echo cancellation. The software is available now for use with the StarPro SP2600 family of media processors.
EN-Genius Says…
LSI’s introduction of this new echo cancellation software for their StarPro 2600 DSPs yet another sign that the company is making the necessary strategic investments in what remains of the once-proud Agere/Lucent/AT&T semiconductor empire to ensure that at least some of its most valuable product lines and technologies keep evolving and remain commercially viable. LSI’s echo canceller package is a key addition to the software library for their kick-butt LSI StarPro SP2600 multi-core DSP family (reviewed here April 2008). Bristling with specialized hardware cores and I/O selected specifically to support voice and telecom applications, the SP2600 is intended for high-density compression, transcoding applications, where it can handle 120+ Voice Channels per watt in simpler coding tasks like G.711 (without running echo cancellation). This critical building block eliminates the need for third-party software, or expensive in-house development, efforts that StarPro users have had to rely on for their echo canceller solutions until now. Even companies that roll most of their own DSP software will appreciate having a solid piece of reference code to start from.
As the release above indicates, the software can be used to generate up to three windows of echo cancellation (up to 42 ms total) across an echo tail of up to 128 ms. What the release does not explain as clearly is how hard LSI has worked on delivering a product that goes far beyond meeting the basic ITU G.168 echo cancellation specification to deliver code that delivers the best possible voice quality: even under the toughest conditions. One of the most challenging things an echo canceller faces is taking the echo energy out of a transmitted signal while a received signal is occurring at the same time (doubletalk). Instead of simply meeting the G.168 spec, LSI put a great deal of effort into exceeding it in ways that make a noticeable difference in real-world applications.
The independent test results conducted by Head Acoustics, that I saw, indicate that LSI’s software did not drop out or distort any of the doubletalk signals while still delivering 20+ dB worth of echo cancellation. They also show the software does not inject artifacts into the received signal when there is little or no echo present on the line (a condition that’s common in IP PBXs and other local computer telephony systems), something that is not covered by the G.168 specification and can cause the software that’s supplied for some other DSPs to actually create artifacts that mimic echo.
While LSI’s software library and suite of development tools are still not quite as comprehensive as those of its competitors, the addition of echo cancellation capability is a big step towards giving its StarPro product line one of the weapons it needs to go toe-to-toe with the likes of TI and Freescale.
The LSI network echo canceller solution for StarPro Media Processors is available now, with pricing dependent on application and volume.
StarPro Software Product Page
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