Israel semiconductor company DSP Group Inc. (Nasdaq: DSPG) has announced that it is cooperating with ecommerce giant Amazon. The agreement is likely to gain the Israeli company tens of millions of dollars in revenue and become an important revenue segment for it.

Under the agreement, Amazon is adding DSP Group to a group of companies whose chip is put into various models of the Echo smart loudspeaker operated by the Alexa Voice Service (AVS). Many other companies offering devices connecting to the AVS cloud will now be able to use DSP Group's chip.

DSP Group CEO Ofer Elyakim told "Globes", "This announcement is a milestone for our company. It constitutes ratification of our algorithms' quality and the capabilities of our system. Amazon has a limited number of partners, all of them huge US companies like Intel and Qualcomm; now a small company from Israel is also a partner. This is definitely a significant cooperative effort for us and we expect our chip to be installed in tens of millions of devices in the coming years, meaning that the potential is huge."

Elyakim adds that the potential is even greater because recognition from Amazon will help DSP Group get orders from many more companies. "We project a brilliant future for this chip in terms of both revenue for the company and possibilities of support for it. This a red-hot segment right now. We're seeing voice interface being put in every kind of device, whether it's a car, a home refrigerator, a television, a smartphone, a watch, or headphones," he says, adding that in the future, the chip will be installed in artificial intelligence systems with capable of processing voice, noise, and whispers and translating them intelligently in order to provide the user with a natural language usage experience.

DSP Group's development platform consists of the DBMD5 chip and the HDClear 3-Mic Development Kit. The chips have advanced capabilities for eliminating noise and echoes. DSP Group emphasizes the system's spatial precision and its minimal energy consumption, which make it suitable for installing on mobile devices. The constantly growing market includes tens of millions of voice-operated devices, smart speakers, headphones, tablets, and other devices, with DSP Group charging a few dollars for every chip installed. The sales volume of Alexa devices on Amazon is believed to be in the tens of millions annually. A study by Juniper Research found that the voice-operated devices market in the US will grow from 450 million units in 2017 to 870 million units by 2022.

AVS director Priya Abani says, "We’re excited to work with DSP Group to achieve this vision and offer developers additional tools that add to the various resources they already have available to build Alexa-enabled device."

DSP Group, founded 32 years ago, is now a global leader in chips for devices for office communications, conference calls, and wireless telephones. The company also develops chips for smart homes and Internet of Things (IoT). A third sector is development of chips for processing voice information and voice operation. DSP Group's customers include companies such as Samsung, VTech, Panasonic, Cisco Systems, and Motorola. The company's revenue totaled $127.8 million in 2017.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 28, 2018

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