Chromatic Inc.

The disclosure generally relates to a method, system and apparatus to improve a user's understanding of speech in real-time conversations by processing the audio through a neural network contained in a hearing device. The hearing device may be a headphone or hearing aid. In one embodiment, the disclosure relates to an apparatus to enhance incoming audio signal. The apparatus includes a controller to receive an incoming signal and provide a controller output signal; a neural network engine (NNE) circuitry in communication with the controller, the NNE circuitry activatable by the controller, the NNE circuitry configured to generate an NNE output signal from the controller output signal; and a digital signal processing (DSP) circuitry to receive one or more of controller output signal or the NNE circuitry output signal to thereby generate a processed signal; wherein the controller determines a processing path of the controller output signal through one of the DSP or the NNE circuitries as a function of one or more of predefined parameters, incoming signal characteristics and NNE circuitry feedback.

A neural network chip may include a plurality of tiles including a first tile and a second tile. The first tile may be configured to generate first data at least in part by performing first multiply-accumulate operations. The second tile may be configured to generate second data at least in part by performing second multiply-accumulate operations. The second tile may be configured to transmit a control signal to the first tile when the second data has been generated. The first tile may be configured to transmit the first data to the second tile when the control signal has been received and the first data has been generated. The second tile may be configured to combine the second data generated by the second tile with the first data received from the first tile to produce combined first data and second data.

The disclosure generally relates to a method, system and apparatus for processing audio through a neural network contained in a hearing device. In one embodiment, the disclosure relates to an apparatus to enhance incoming audio signal. The apparatus includes a controller to receive an incoming signal and provide a controller output signal; neural network engine (NNE) circuitry in communication with the controller, the NNE circuitry activatable by the controller, the NNE circuitry configured to generate an NNE output signal from the controller output signal; and digital signal processing (DSP) circuitry to receive one or more of controller output signal or the NNE circuitry output signal to thereby generate a processed signal; wherein the controller determines a processing path of the controller output signal through one of the DSP or the NNE circuitries as a function of one or more of predefined parameters, incoming signal characteristics and NNE circuitry feedback.

The disclosure generally relates to a method, system and apparatus to improve a user's understanding of speech in real-time conversations by processing the audio through a neural network contained in a hearing device. The hearing device may be a headphone or hearing aid. In one embodiment, the disclosure relates to an apparatus to enhance incoming audio signal. The apparatus includes a controller to receive an incoming signal and provide a controller output signal; a neural network engine (NNE) circuitry in communication with the controller, the NNE circuitry activatable by the controller, the NNE circuitry configured to generate an NNE output signal from the controller output signal; and a digital signal processing (DSP) circuitry to receive one or more of controller output signal or the NNE circuitry output signal to thereby generate a processed signal; wherein the controller determines a processing path of the controller output signal through one of the DSP or the NNE circuitries as a function of one or more of predefined parameters, incoming signal characteristics and NNE circuitry feedback.

The disclosure generally relates to a method, system and apparatus to improve a user's understanding of speech in real-time conversations by processing the audio through a neural network contained in a hearing device. The hearing device may be a headphone or hearing aid. In one embodiment, the disclosure relates to an apparatus to enhance incoming audio signal. The apparatus includes a controller to receive an incoming signal and provide a controller output signal; a neural network engine (NNE) circuitry in communication with the controller, the NNE circuitry activatable by the controller, the NNE circuitry configured to generate an NNE output signal from the controller output signal; and a digital signal processing (DSP) circuitry to receive one or more of controller output signal or the NNE circuitry output signal to thereby generate a processed signal; wherein the controller determines a processing path of the controller output signal through one of the DSP or the NNE circuitries as a function of one or more of predefined parameters, incoming signal characteristics and NNE circuitry feedback.

A hearing aid includes neural network circuitry configured to implement a neural network trained to separate a speech subsignal and a noise subsignal from an input audio signal, and digital processing circuitry. The digital processing circuitry includes a speech wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) pipeline and a noise WDRC pipeline. The speech WDRC pipeline is configured to apply a set of speech fitting curves to the speech subsignal based at least in part on the level of the speech subsignal. The noise WDRC pipeline is configured to apply a set of noise fitting curves to the noise subsignal based at least in part on the level of the noise subsignal. The set of speech fitting curves is different from the set of noise fitting curves.

A hearing aid may include a neural network chip having tiles arranged in an array, each tile including memory, 16-128 multiplier-accumulator circuits (MACs), and routing circuitry. The memory of each tile may be configured to store a portion of elements of a matrix A comprising weights of a recurrent neural network. Each tile may be configured to receive and store elements of an activation vector X, and all tiles in a column of the array may be configured to receive the same elements of X. The plurality of tiles may be configured to perform a matrix-vector multiplication A*X by performing multiply-and-accumulate sub-operations in parallel among the plurality of tiles. The routing circuitry from the tiles in each respective row of tiles may be configured to combine results of the multiply-and-accumulate sub-operations.

A hearing aid may include a neural network chip having tiles arranged in an array, each tile including memory, 16-128 multiplier-accumulator circuits (MACs), and routing circuitry. The memory of each tile may be configured to store a portion of elements of a matrix A comprising weights of a recurrent neural network. Each tile may be configured to receive and store elements of an activation vector X, and all tiles in a column of the array may be configured to receive the same elements of X. The plurality of tiles may be configured to perform a matrix-vector multiplication A*X by performing multiply-and-accumulate sub-operations in parallel among the plurality of tiles. The routing circuitry from the tiles in each respective row of tiles may be configured to combine results of the multiply-and-accumulate sub-operations.

An ear-worn device may include neural network circuitry configured to determine, using a neural network, one or both of a neural network-predicted speech component of an input audio signal and a neural network-predicted noise component of the input audio signal. The ear-worn device may further include mixing circuitry configured to perform mixing resulting in an output signal corresponding to the neural network-predicted speech component of the input audio signal mixed with the neural network-predicted noise component of the input audio signal. The ear-worn device may further include adaptive mixing control circuitry configured to control the mixing performed by the mixing circuitry based, at least in part, on a level of an estimate of a stationary noise component of the input audio signal and/or a level of the neural network-predicted noise component of the input audio signal.

An ear-worn device is provided that operates to isolate and individually treat the received speech of a target speaker or multiple target speakers from an audio input signal detected in a multi-speaker environment. The ear-worn device uses a machine learning model that receives a voice signature of each of one or more target speakers as input signals, to identify and isolate the component of the audio input signal attributable to the target speaker(s). Once isolated, the target speaker's speech may be enhanced, de-emphasized, or otherwise processed in a manner desired by the wearer of the ear-worn device. The wearer may use an external electronic device, e.g., a phone, to select one or more target speakers in a conversation and/or configure various settings associated with processing the speech on the ear-worn device.