At present, about 1.5 billion people worldwide suffer from hearing loss, and there are nearly 72 million hearing impaired people in China. The wear rate of hearing aids as an effective tool to help improve hearing is very low, even less than 5% in China, which is inseparable from the high price of traditional hearing aids and the complicated fitting process.
In 2017, the US FDA passed the sales license for OTC hearing aids, and in 2021, it issued a deepening proposal for OTC hearing aids. The two major measures have increased the channels for consumers to purchase hearing aids, made it more convenient to verify and match, and also attracted more attention from the hearing aid market.
New players joining the hearing aid market include audio vendors such as Nuheara, BOSE, Jabra, and Sennheiser. Veteran audio manufacturers have introduced many disruptive products to the hearing aid market with their technical precipitation in the headphone industry combined with the characteristics of TWS headphones.
Although many hearing aid manufacturers, headphone manufacturers, chip manufacturers have entered the game, and the blue ocean market has unlimited potential, the hearing aid market has long been monopolized by the world's five major manufacturers, there are barriers to core technology, and the price of chips and software continues to remain high, resulting in the price of finished hearing aids that many hearing-impaired people cannot afford.
In the face of technology monopoly, Tianyue Electronics broke the ice
In the face of the monopoly of foreign chip manufacturers, in order to break the technical and price barriers, many domestic manufacturers have joined in the research and development of hearing aid chips. As early as April 2020, Tianyue Electronics released the industry's first ultra-low-power digital hearing aid chip - HA320D, filling the gap of domestic professional digital hearing aid chips, and subsequently launched the second generation of products HA330G. "Core available" has broken the industry pattern that has long been monopolized by foreign investors, and "special core practicality" has also ignited the enthusiasm of manufacturers in different industries for the hearing industry. In 2021, the first two generations of Tianyue Electronics have reached million-level shipments, with stable quality and continuous reputation.
On May 6, 2022, Tianyue Electronics' third-generation SoC chip HA601SC will be born. The chip has been reconstructed and innovated in hardware and algorithm, and the characteristics of low energy consumption, high channel count and wide application make it have the ability to compete with imported chips. The emergence of HA601SC has given innovative significance to creating a domestic professional digital hearing aid that is affordable to the whole people. For the domestic professional medical, OTC, consumer hearing aid market, HA601SC will become a more cost-effective choice.
High-performance, low-power digital hearing aid SoC chip HA601SC
HA601SC is independently developed by Tianyue Electronics, suitable for medical grade hearing aids, OTC non-test hearing aids, TWS/Bluetooth headsets and other forms of hearing aids, and has now been officially put into mass production.
Ha601SC chip core features and algorithms
System hardware structure diagram
HA601SC core features
1, low consumption and high efficiency
The chip adopts a comprehensive low-power design technology, which consumes less than 1.5mA in typical applications, and has embedded a 32-bit RISC-CPU with two 32-bit buses, I-Code and D-Code. The CPU operates at low clock and low voltage, eliminating invalid power consumption, and has the characteristics of rich and easy to use instructions and high execution efficiency.
2. Powerful kernel
The chip is also equipped with a dual-MAC structure DSP core, which has a multi-channel DMA controller and a multi-operation accelerator built into the core, which can perform SIMD operations; with DMA, it can achieve fast and efficient operation response.
3. Flexible expansion
The chip integrates two 16-bit Σ-delta audio ADCs, one 16-bit Σ-delta audio DAC, three SAR ADCs, and one Class-D power amplifier. The chip also provides peripheral interfaces such as GPIO, UART, SPI, IIC, etc., with flexible scalability.
4. Voice processing
The chip has built-in mathematical operation libraries, digital signal processing libraries and algorithm libraries. Among them, the algorithm library includes multi-channel wide dynamic range compression, voice enhancement, whistle detection, echo suppression, equalizer, etc., to meet the functions and indicators of high-end digital hearing aids.
HA601SC core algorithm
The algorithm consists of four core parts, namely intelligent fitting algorithm, directional speech enhancement algorithm, adaptive noise suppression algorithm, and echo cancellation algorithm. Precise tuning through 16-channel wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) technology accurately matches the patient's hearing loss and improves the suitability of the hearing impaired population. Directional speech enhancement based on spatial filter effectively distinguishes speech from noise, enhances the target sound source, and provides sufficient conditions for clear pickup.
According to user characteristics and environmental parameters, the Tianyue team optimized models such as speech compensation for hearing aids and hearing aid fitting. Through real-time analysis of the time-frequency characteristics of speech and noise, adaptive estimation algorithm is used to effectively suppress noise, achieve efficient noise reduction, and improve patient comprehensibility. The echo cancellation algorithm of the HA601SC adaptively estimates the echo path and performs echo signal filtering, which can effectively eliminate the echo and improve the maximum gain of the hearing aid. At the same time, the closed loop of the hearing aid headset is destroyed by de-related algorithms, so as to further avoid the whistling sound that occurs during the hearing aid removal and wearing, and improve the user experience of the product.
Technical service engineering software interface
HA601SC adopts the collaborative working mode of software and hardware, provides a full set of algorithm firmware and tuning programs for manufacturers and customers free of charge, breaks the complicated charging routine of foreign manufacturers " hardware sales + software licensing", and the price transparency has no increments.
Ha601SC has a complete hearing aid firmware library and algorithm library, and the audio processing algorithm can work with low power consumption and high efficiency. Under the condition of using a small number of peripheral circuits, manufacturers can design digital hearing aid modules and complete machine products with excellent performance, both sex and price, and wide applications.
The strong core, rich expansion and diverse algorithm library make the HA601SC stand out among the mainstream hearing aid chips on the market, help manufacturers design hearing aids with affordable prices, high-end quality and strong practicality, and easily realize functions such as "whistle suppression, improved sound clarity, intelligent scene recognition and noise reduction". The potential of the HA601SC has been optimistic and will help the launch of iFLYTEK's first intelligent hearing aid product on May 6, 2022.
The HA601SC chip not only brings comfortable hearing, intelligent experience and durability to digital hearing aid users, but also empowers manufacturers to develop cost-effective hearing aids. The hearing aid industry is on the eve of a deep change, and there are a few people in the market who are interested in getting involved in the field of hearing aids, and there are a few people who are trying to turn headphones into hearing aids. The emergence of HA601SC will promote the localization of chips in the hearing aid industry to accelerate the change, and greatly boost the iterative upgrading of the entire consumer hearing aid market.
About Tianyue Electronics
Nanjing Tianyue Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. was established in November 2018, is a high-tech company dedicated to the research and development of high-performance, low-power microprocessors, high-end digital hearing aid audio processing algorithms, audio acquisition and processing asetic integrated circuit research and development. The company focuses on the research and development, design and production of digital hearing aids and other health industry chips and algorithms, and provides low-power, low-latency, high-performance, algorithm-containing chips, modules and overall solutions for medical-grade hearing aids, OTC non-fitting hearing aids, TWS/Bluetooth headset manufacturers and solution providers.
Tianyue official cooperation contact:
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