SRS Labs and Dspfactory Unveil Low-power Single-chip DSP Solution

SANTA ANA, CA - SRS Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRSL), a provider of patented audio and voice technologies, and Dspfactory Ltd., a provider of programmable digital signal processing (DSP) technology, has announced a strategic partnership to deliver a complete DSP solution including voice enhancement technologies for digital communications devices. The combination of SRS Labs' advanced audio and voice technologies and Dspfactory's incredibly small, low-power, single-chip DSP solution, BelaSigna 200, produce a DSP platform for product manufacturers. SRS Labs' is releasing a new version of its patented voice intelligibility technology, VIP, on the BelaSigna 200 that includes a newly integrated noise reduction feature. VIP is the first SRS technology optimized on this DSP technology, with others to follow soon. The new SRS VIP solution suppresses in-channel noise for receive or transmit voice paths and provides voice clarity and intelligibility improvements, especially for mobile communication devices frequently used in noisy environments. For Bluetooth wireless devices, the solution also easily interfaces with Bluetooth chips such as Silicon Wave's UltimateBlue 3000 radio processor. The combined solution is also well suited for mission critical and military communication, hearing aids, conference phones, digital corded headsets and other consumer electronics products. "Dspfactory's incredibly small BelaSigna 200 is an impressive solution in its own right," said Ted Franceschi, executive vice-president of licensing and general manager of SRS Labs. "When integrated with the newly optimized SRS VIP with noise reduction technology and our award-winning WOW technology next month, the partnership is positioned to generate a powerful portfolio of the smallest, most innovative, cost-effective, fast-to-market software-hardware solutions applicable to a wide range of product markets. With our strong brand recognition, world-class customers and now an impressive suite of algorithms to form this unique total solution, we are advancing new ideas in product design and expanding our licensing opportunities in growing markets such as digital headsets, mobile accessories and assistive hearing devices while opening new high margin markets in the area of mission critical and military communication and hearing aids." Product manufacturers who license SRS audio and voice solutions may also participate in SRS Labs' global marketing and logo branding programs. Geoff Bellew, vice president sales and marketing for Dspfactory, commented, "Our customers are looking to build communication devices with superb audio fidelity and SRS Labs is an ideal partner to combine our DSP technology with highly-integrated versions of their popular branded audio and voice technologies to create a fully optimized solution. Having SRS Labs join our growing partnership program is very exciting," Bellew continued. "It now makes accessible their world-renowned algorithms to small form-factor communication devices." By DSP-enabling communications devices such as Bluetooth headsets and applying SRS Labs' VIP technology with integrated noise reduction, significant improvement in speech intelligibility, clarity and quality is achieved independently for the transmit and receive signal paths. This is accomplished by reducing the in-channel noise within the signal and at the same time, providing improved voice intelligibility for the voice bands. For example, while using the headset in a noisy environment such as a car or busy airport, speech intelligibility and listener comprehension can be greatly improved, thus overcoming the competing noise within the environment. The flexibility, low power and ultra-low group delay of the BelaSigna 200 chip combined with world-class algorithms from SRS Labs open a whole new range of possibilities in audio-centric and voice-centric wired and wireless consumer electronics applications.