XMOS’ XK-VF3000-L33-AVS kit features a small four-microphone linear array that enables developers and OEMs to add far-field voice capture by utilizing Amazon AVS. The linear design is optimized for integration into consumer electronics and IoT products. The captured voice signals are crystal clear even in noisy environments, enabling conversations and commands to be accurately processed and passed to the Alexa cloud-based speech recognition system using an applications processor such as a Raspberry Pi.

At the heart of the XMOS solution is the VocalFusion XVF3000, a highly integrated far-field voice processor based on the XMOS award-winning multicore architecture. The XVF3000 delivers sophisticated voice digital signal processing (DSP) capability – a full duplex acoustic echo canceller (AEC), with barge-in capability to remove echoes from the four microphone inputs and allow users to interrupt or pause a device that is playing music or other audio, an adaptive beamformer to find and track the speaker of interest, and sophisticated noise suppression to eliminate stationary and non-stationary noises in the environment.

The kit contains an XMOS XVF3000 processor base board, linear microphone array (4x Infineon IM69D130 MEMS microphones), Raspberry Pi header (I²S audio and I²C control connectivity), micro-USB connector for power (and optional USB2.0 device connectivity), low jitter audio quality clock, DAC with integrated headphone amplifier, four user input buttons, and 13 LEDs, providing direction-of-arrival indication. The XMOS solution packs DSP, I/O processing, and control software into a single chip, enabling customers to significantly reduce their bill of materials, flexibly tailor their designs, and reduce costs.