Low power integrated circuit to analyze a digitized audio stream

• US 9,564,131 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2011
• Issued: 02/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Liu, Eric, Marti, Stefan Johannes Walter, Kim, Seung Wook
• Primary Examiner(s): Abebe, Daniel
• Application Number:
  US14/363,783
• Publication Number:
  US 20150162002A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,889 Days
• Field of Search: 704/275
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3206 Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3293 by switching to a less power-consuming processor, e.g. sub-CPU
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1822 Parsing for meaning understanding
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/285 Memory allocation or algorithm optimisation to reduce hardware requirements
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/088 Word spotting
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

Examples disclose a low power integrated circuit to receive and digitize an audio stream. Further, the examples provide the low power integrated circuit to compare the digitized audio stream to a keyword and store the digitized audio stream in a memory. Additionally, the examples also disclose upon recognition of the keyword in the digitized audio stream, the low power integrated circuit transmits a signal to a processor to increase power and analyze the digitized audio stream.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, an audio stream;

continuously monitoring, by a low power integrated circuit of the computing device, the audio stream;

digitizing, by the low power integrated circuit, the audio stream;

storing, by the low power integrated circuit, the digitized audio stream in a memory, wherein storing the digitized audio stream comprises replacing a prior digitized audio stream stored in the memory with the digitized audio stream;

analyzing, by the low power integrated circuit, the stored digitized audio stream for recognition of a keyword;

upon recognition of the keyword within the stored digitized audio stream, inducing, by the low power integrated circuit, a processor of the computing device to enter an increased power usage state;

retrieving, by the processor, the stored digitized audio stream from the memory;

converting the stored digitized audio stream to a text stream using the processor; and

prompting the computing device to perform one or more actions based on the text stream.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

compressing the digitized audio stream into a compressed digitized audio stream, wherein the analyzing comprises analyzing the compressed digitized audio stream for recognition of the keyword.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the text stream comprises a string of symbols that the processor is configured to comprehend.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the one or more actions include at least one of:

performing a web search, dialing a phone number, opening an application, recording text, streaming media, composing a text message, listing directions, or speaking directions.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein an action of the one or more actions comprises:

transmitting the text stream to a server;

receiving a response from the server based on analysis of the text stream by the server, and

determining the action based on analysis of the response by the processor.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the audio stream includes at least one of speech from a user, speech from another computing device, and audio from the another computing device.

7. A computing device comprising:

a low power integrated circuit;

a memory coupled to the low power integrated circuit;

a processor coupled to the low power integrated circuit;

wherein the low power integrated circuit is configured to;

continuously monitor and digitize an audio stream received by the computing device,

store the digitized audio stream in the memory, wherein storing the digitized audio stream comprises replacing a prior digitized audio stream stored in the memory with the digitized audio stream,

analyze the stored digitized audio stream to recognize a keyword, and

upon recognition of the keyword in the stored digitized audio stream, induce the processor of the computing device to enter an increased power usage state; and

wherein the process is configured to;

retrieve the stored digitized audio stream from the memory;

analyze the stored digitized audio stream to determine an action to be performed by the computing device.

8. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to:

convert the stored digitized audio stream to a text stream; and

determine the action based on-text in the text stream.

9. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to:

transmit the stored digitized audio stream or a text stream generated from the stored digitized audio stream to a server to determine an action; and

receive a response from the server indicating the action to be performed by the computing device.

10. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the low power integrated circuit is further configured to compress the digitized audio stream to obtain a compressed digitized audio stream;

and

the processor is further configured to analyze the compressed digitized audio stream to recognize the keyword.

11. The computing device of claim 9, further comprising:

an output device configured to render the response to a user of the computing device.

12. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the analyzing the stored digitized audio stream to recognize the keyword includes comparing the stored digitized audio stream to the keyword.

13. A low power integrated circuit of a system, the low power integrate circuit configured to:

receive an audio stream;

continuously monitor the audio stream;

digitize the audio stream;

store the digitized audio stream in a memory coupled to the circuitry, wherein storing the digitized audio stream comprises replacing a prior digitized audio stream stored in the memory with the digitized audio stream;

compare the stored digitized audio stream to a keyword; and

upon recognition of the keyword in the stored digitized audio stream, induce a processor of the system to enter an increased power usage state for the processor to retrieve the stored digitized audio stream from the memory and analyze the stored digitized audio stream.

14. The low power integrated circuit of claim 13, wherein the processor is separate and distinct from the low power integrated circuit.

15. The low power integrated circuit of claim 13, further configured to induce the processor to analyze the stored digitized audio stream.

16. The low power integrated circuit of claim 13, wherein the stored digitized audio stream includes the keyword and additional audio information.

17. The low power integrated circuit of claim 16, wherein the processor is further configured to select one of a plurality of actions to be performed based on the keyword and the additional audio information.