Small electronic products like wearables and IoT devices can now provide high-end audio features, including advanced aural user interfaces, thanks to a new easy-to-use graphical design tool for STM32 microcontrollers from STMicroelectronics. ST has worked with DSP Concepts, creator of the Audio Weaver design suite, to present a free version of the tool - ST-AudioWeaver - for developers using its 32-bit ARM Cortex-M based STM32 microcontrollers.
Audio Weaver enables product designers to build complex digital audio applications without coding. Developers simply choose the required audio modules from a library, connect them graphically, and adjust them by live-tuning on the target hardware. Examples are included, which accelerate learning and help jump-start new projects.
“DSP Concepts has created a high-end audio-development experience for the embedded domain. ST-AudioWeaver now gives our customers preferential access to help them make the most of the audio capabilities of STM32 MCUs, which complement the outstanding features and power efficiency for IoT applications,” says Daniel Colonna, Marketing Director, Microcontroller Division, STMicroelectronics.
Dr. Paul Beckmann, Founder and CEO of DSP Concepts, Inc, added, “With ST- AudioWeaver, product designers will find it much easier to incorporate advanced audio features in IoT and wearable devices. Audio engineers will love it because it’s much like plugging physical components together however you want, then adjusting the knobs and sliders to get everything tuned perfectly — except it’s all happening onscreen.”
ST-AudioWeaver contains a library of 160 royalty-free digital audio-processing modules, including versatile and powerful filtering, array-processing and noise-cancelling modules that can make voice-recognition systems far more effective. The Audio Weaver Designer PC GUI is also included free of charge, which lets developers configure the modules and do fine-tuning in the GUI or on prototype hardware. This creates a customized audio-processing engine that runs directly on the production embedded system with no further tailoring required. Users are also free to take advantage of DSP Concepts’ commercial offers to scale and upgrade ST-Audio Weaver, for example by adding further audio modules or MATLAB API support.
STM32 microcontrollers are ideal for use in IoT and wearable devices, with rich and efficient features for user-interface management, networking, control, and sensor fusion. Over 700 different variants give versatile choices in terms of performance, pin-count and feature integration. The pin-, software- and peripheral-compatible devices also offer convenient scalability, and all benefit from cutting-edge energy efficiency leveraging the ARM Cortex-M core architecture.
Special ultra-low-power technologies in the STM32L4 series go even further to save energy and maximize the runtime of small battery-operated or self-powered devices. Plentiful audio features add to the STM32 credentials as the reference microcontroller family for IoT applications, and include peripherals such as I2S and S/PDIF digital audio interfaces, and a DFSDM input that streamlines acquisition of MEMS-microphone signals and is ideal for voice-command applications.
The DSP core extensions of the STM32F4, STM32L4, and STM32F7, which are the series currently supported in ST-AudioWeaver, enable a single-chip solution capable of high-performance audio processing, which would otherwise require a separate DSP co-processor.
DSP Concepts' Audio Weaver is an innovative design environment for developing optimized embedded audio software. It enables algorithm and product developers to more quickly and efficiently develop products and technology. Audio Weaver is suitable for the entire lifecycle of an algorithm, from basic research, to optimization and productization, integration into end products, and ongoing legacy support.
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