The report from Electronic Enthusiasts Network (by Huang Shanming) discusses DSP chips, or Digital Signal Processor chips, which can perform digital processing on analog signals, characterized by high speed, low power consumption, and high precision. As smart homes advance towards intelligence, automation, and digitization, the demand for DSP continues to rise.
Evolution of DSP Chips
In the 1960s, with the rapid development of computers and information technology, digital signal processing technology began to emerge and develop quickly. At that time, digital signal processing was primarily reliant on microprocessors, or MPUs. However, due to the low processing speed of MPUs at that time, they could not meet the increasing volume of information and the urgent need for high-speed real-time processing. Therefore, a faster and more efficient signal processing method became a key research project, leading to the birth of DSP in this era.By the 1970s, the theoretical and algorithmic foundations of DSP chips began to mature, but this technology initially existed only in textbooks, and even when developed, it was limited to military and aerospace applications.In 1978, AMI officially launched the world’s first monolithic DSP chip, the S2811. A year later, Intel released a commercial programmable device, the 2920, which can be considered a milestone for DSP chips. However, the products released during this period did not have the single-cycle chip essential for modern DSP chips.In 1980, Japan’s NEC company introduced the MPD7720, regarded as the first commercial DSP with a hardware multiplier, also considered the first monolithic DSP device. Two years later, TI launched its first-generation DSP chip, the TMS32010, manufactured using micron process NMOS technology. Although it had slightly higher power consumption, its computation speed was dozens of times faster than contemporary microprocessors. The introduction of this DSP also marked an important step in the miniaturization of DSP application systems, representing a significant milestone for DSP chips. After that, DSP began to see widespread application.Currently, with the growing scale of information technology industries represented by big data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, the demand for integrated circuits is rising, with total imports from abroad continuously increasing each year.Moreover, with the popularization of 5G and the Internet of Things, the demand for DSP will continue to rise, as this chip plays a crucial role in processing baseband signals, signal demodulation, encoding/decoding, and RF front-end in 5G communications.However, due to factors such as product branding, performance, and application fields, there is a significant price differentiation in domestic DSP chip products. Some products in the military and aerospace sectors can cost thousands of yuan, while some consumer audio DSP chips are priced around 20 yuan.In the market, the main foreign DSP chip manufacturers are three: TI, ADI, and Motorola, with TI holding the vast majority of the international market share, while ADI and Motorola also hold a portion of the market.Domestic DSP chips started relatively late, with a low market share for domestic products. Major domestic DSP manufacturers include QunTeng Micro, Hunan JinXin, HongYun Technology, ChuangCheng Micro, BenYuan Micro, GuLiang Micro, ZhongKe HaoXin, LuMi Micro, and Wuxi Chip Field.
The Important Role of DSP in Smart Homes
One of the biggest applications of DSP is audio processing, enabling various sound effect processing, volume control, noise reduction, echo cancellation, and other functions. In the consumer electronics field, many high-end TWS earphones have integrated DSP chips to achieve advanced call noise reduction features.In smart homes, many products require the integration of DSP, such as smart speakers, smart TVs, or other smart home products that can be controlled by voice.Moreover, different audio devices have varying requirements for voice functionality. For example, conference speakers or video call devices used in office settings require good noise reduction, echo cancellation, automatic gain control, and low-power wake-up features.In addition to noise reduction, low power consumption has also become a key focus in the development of DSP chips. For instance, EU and North American environmental regulations require ordinary smart far-field voice TVs to achieve 24-hour standby wake-up, with standby power consumption exceeding 20W. Solving the power consumption issue is essential to gain a foothold in these markets.Data shows that in 2020, China’s DSP market size was approximately 13.69 billion yuan. In 2021, benefiting from the rapid development of artificial intelligence, voice recognition, and 5G base station communication, the market size quickly grew to 16 billion yuan, reaching 16.702 billion yuan in 2022.From a global market perspective, in 2021, the global DSP chip market sales amounted to approximately 3.6 billion USD, and it is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.8% from 2022 to 2028, reaching 5.7 billion USD by 2028.With the development of generative AI, more and more manufacturers are beginning to bind their language models with smart home products, making human-machine interaction more natural and smooth. The integration of DSP not only enhances the sound quality of devices but also allows users’ voices to be better heard and understood by the devices.Currently, many DSP products only support proprietary algorithms or must be sold with proprietary algorithms, which poses a challenge for the rapidly developing AI technology. However, some manufacturers have begun to establish flexible and open systems to match DSP with a series of solutions for voice wake-up, noise reduction, call enhancement, sound effect enhancement, sound source localization, and voiceprint recognition, to adapt to the current fast-developing smart devices.On the other hand, some may believe that with the rapid development of FPGAs, these products will continuously invade and erode the DSP market due to their performance advantages. However, in the real market, due to factors such as cost and power consumption, many high-volume applications have not adopted FPGAs, while programmable DSPs remain indispensable, as evidenced in many smart home products.With lower costs and lower power consumption, DSP seems to have found a path of sustained growth in smart homes, and as smart home technology develops, increasingly higher demands are placed on DSP.
Conclusion
With the rapid development of emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, and 5G, the strong interactive attributes of smart homes are becoming increasingly prominent, and the key to interaction lies in enabling machines to understand human speech and allowing humans to understand machines. Furthermore, with the close integration of generative AI and smart homes, the future language interaction between humans and smart homes is expected to experience explosive growth, providing vast growth space for DSP.
Disclaimer: This article is original from Electronic Enthusiasts. Please indicate the source when reprinting. For group discussions, please add WeChat elecfans999, for submission inquiries, please email [email protected].
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