News Release: Dspfactory releases advanced prototyping and development tools

From: Dspfactory Announcements - Oct 23, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dspfactory releases advanced prototyping and development tools to help manufacturers accelerate and simplify the design and launch of audio products --WOLA Toolbox and SignaKlara Blockset tools enable product simulation in MATLAB and Simulink environments

WATERLOO, ON, October 23, 2003 -- Dspfactory Ltd., a leading provider of open programmable digital signal processing (DSP) technology for hearing aids, headsets, PDAs, and other portable audio devices, today announced the immediate availability of its new simulation tools: WOLA Toolbox and SignaKlara Blockset. The new tools, designed specifically for Dspfactory's SignaKlara technology, enable end-product developers to quickly and easily evaluate Dspfactory industry-leading ultra-low power audio technology.

Both tools simulate the functionality of Dspfactory's patented weighted overlap-add (WOLA) filterbank coprocessor implemented on Dspfactory's audio-processing chips. Developers can quickly build, simulate, evaluate and optimize algorithms for Dspfactory hardware in a user-friendly, graphical environment using the familiar MATLAB or Simulink environments. "This can save valuable time and engineering costs early in the evaluation and development cycle and greatly shorten time to implementation," said Todd Schneider, vice president of technology for Dspfactory.

"We're excited to hear about these new additions to Dspfactory's evaluation and development tool suite," commented Barak Dar, CEO of AVR Sonovation, developers of ImpaCt XP, the first DSP-enabled hearing instrument with real time phoneme analysis and frequency compression algorithms. "This will make algorithm prototyping and development on Dspfactory's highly flexible platform technology even easier and faster."

Finn Møller, R&D Manager of Microsound A/S, a Danish-based innovative digital audio company also added, "We anticipate these new prototyping tools will help us to generate and refine algorithms on Dspfactory's platform in a fraction of the current time, further strengthening the appeal of Dspfactory's DSP solution."

"We developed these additional tools for our tools suite in response to significant market and customer demand," continued Schneider. "With the rapid growth in our customer base and those wishing to gain access to our ultra-low power technology, these tools provide an easy on-ramp for developers to explore the capabilities of our technology. This also builds on our commitment to providing tools that enable our customers to quickly and easily evaluate our technology and to simplify and accelerate their development cycle. As a direct result, the time and cost required to bring their products to market is greatly reduced."

WOLA Toolbox Simulation Tool The WOLA Toolbox enables developers to become more familiar with Dspfactory's patented weighted overlap-add (WOLA) filterbank coprocessor operations. Simulating the functionality of the filterbank, the tool enables developers to become more familiar with WOLA filterbank coprocessor transforms before implementing algorithms on Dspfactory technology. This tool consists of a simulation library with MATLAB and C language interfaces and can be used directly in either MATLAB models or simulation programs written in languages such as C, C++, Visual Basic and Python. WOLA Toolbox is compatible with MATLAB 5.3 and later.

SignaKlara Blockset Simulation Tool The SignaKlara Blockset tool is designed specifically for Simulink users and consists of a library of DSP building blocks that facilitate algorithm prototyping. This tool lets developers insert Dspfactory blocks within their own Simulink algorithm model and simulate the capabilities and performance of the WOLA filterbank coprocessor and SignaKlara firmware routines. SignaKlara Blockset is compatible with The MathWorks Release 13 (MATLAB 6.5, Simulink 5.0) and later.

Price and Availability The price for the WOLA Toolbox and SignaKlara Blockset is US $200 and US $500 respectively. Both tools are available now and complement Dspfactory's other user-friendly tools. To purchase or inquire about the tools or any of the other leading edge tools available from Dspfactory, visit http://www.dspfactory.com/tools.

About Dspfactory Dspfactory Ltd., a fabless semiconductor company, is a leading-edge developer of ultra-miniaturized, ultra-low power, software-programmable, digital signal processing (DSP) technology.

Dspfactory's mission is to embed its unique technology ubiquitously into a wide range of market applications. Its target markets include hearing aids, headsets, personal digital assistants, personal digital audio players, embedded sensors, baseband wireless devices, cellular telephones, or any other portable, battery-powered DSP-based product where size and power consumption are as important as flexible, advanced software processing capabilities.

To support the development and implementation of signal processing software solutions on its technology platforms, Dspfactory also provides a complete set of easy-to-use support tools and services, ranging from software development and testing tools to custom DSP software development and engineering services. For more information, visit http://www.dspfactory.com.

Dspfactory is a registered trademark and SignaKlara a trademark of Dspfactory Ltd. MATLAB and Simulink are registered trademarks of The MathWorks, Inc. Visual Basic is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other brands, product names and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

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Media Contact:
Geoff Bellew
VP Sales and Marketing
Tel: +1 519 884 9696 Ext. 2280
Mobile: +1 519 721 7807
E-mail: geoff.bellew@dspfactory.com

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Dspfactory Ltd.
611 Kumpf Drive, Unit 200
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2V 1K8

Tel: +1 519 884 9696
Fax: +1 519 884 0228
http://www.dspfactory.com

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