Qualcomm’s QSC400 SoCs to Drive Growth in Smart Speakers, Say Analysts
SAR Insight projects 100 million voice-controlled speakers will ship this year, and Qualcomm’s QSC403 SoC will help drive “significant growth” in portable smart speakers, said analyst Peter Cooney. Analyst Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates expects most growth in the…
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midrange of the market. The QSC404 and QSC405 likely will be “the sweet spot” but the premium QSC 407 will produce the highest revenue, he said. Qualcomm Tuesday here in San Diego (see 1903200042) launched the QCS400 family of smart audio SoCs, which combine artificial intelligence; digital signal processing; Dolby Atmos and DTS:X decoding; compute, media and graphics processors; and multi-keyword voice control support. Initial target of the four-chipset family is the fast-growing smart speaker market. Executives referenced additional uses outside of the traditional audio space. In a demo using a generic smart speaker as the voice interface to control a smart light bulb, Andrea Cantone, Qualcomm Technologies senior manager-product marketing, showed the difference between controlling a light using Alexa vs. in-house assistant Snapdragon. The Alexa command had to follow the script required by Amazon to wake up the device, go to the cloud and tell it to turn on a kitchen light. He told the Snapdragon voice assistant, loaded on the device itself, “It’s too dark in here,” using more casual language enabled by AI. The QCS400 SoCs cover a range of uses, and while they’re audio-based, the product categories don’t have to be. Qualcomm is eyeing thermostats, routers and appliances as targets for the SoCs.