Kanematsu Corp., Japan, Becomes TrueSpeech Distributor

Business Wire, Jan 18, 1995

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 18, 1995--DSP Group Inc. (NASDAQ:DSPG) announced Wednesday that Kanematsu Corp., Minato-ku, Tokyo, has become a distributor of TrueSpeech voice data processing hardware and software products licensed and sold in the Japanese market.

TrueSpeech is an enabling technology for digital speech compression in personal computers and communications products.

Kanematsu Corp. is a leading trading company headquartered in Tokyo, whose origins date back to 1889. Kanematsu distributes products from companies such as AMD, IDT, Microsoft, DEC, OKI, QSI, Rockwell, SEIKO Instruments, Texas Instruments and YAMAHA. Its current customers include such notable companies as Canon, Hitachi, Matsushita, NEC, Ricoh, Sanyo, SHARP, Sony and many other leading Japanese manufacturers.

"DSP Group is very pleased to work with Kanematsu as a new partner for TrueSpeech in Japan," said Eli Porat, president of DSP Group. "Since much of the world's electronic computer and consumer products are either designed or manufactured by companies based in Japan, we think Kanematsu's reputation and experience in this industry will be a major asset for the distribution of TrueSpeech technology and co-processor chips."

TrueSpeech technology from DSP Group enables high quality, efficient processing and transmission of digital speech, which is essential for business and consumer multimedia applications such as teleconferencing, voice mail systems, wireless communications, digital telephone answering machines, games amd education. TrueSpeech is five to 15 times more efficient than most other methods of digital speech compression currently in use. This reserves more of the valuable computing and communications resources for other uses.

"Speech compression technology is a key component in the convergence of the personal computer and telephony products," said Masahi Ishikawa, Manager of Kanematsu's electronics devices department. "We expect TrueSpeech software and hardware technology to assist our customers in developing progressive, quality products to satisfy these emerging markets."

TrueSpeech has been adopted by Microsoft for use in its upcoming Windows 95 operating system, and has already been shipping as part of Windows Sound System. Other OEMs are developing products using versions of TrueSpeech designed to run on Analog Devices, AT&T, DSP Group, Motorola, and Texas Instruments digital signal processor chips.

DSP Group has developed its own family of application specific digital signal processor chips using TrueSpeech speech compression, and various proprietary telephony algorithms, including a full duplex speakerphone. This integrated circuit and speech compression technology is being adapted from the company's telephone answering devices for use in personal computer products.

These new application-specific chips, known as the CT8XXX family, will provide real-time compression of voice signals and add voice mail, telephone answering and full duplex speakerphone features to a PC.

DSP Group Inc. develops and markets enabling digital signal processing and digital speech technologies and products for the telephone answering device (TAD), PC, multimedia, and communications markets. Headquartered in Santa Clara, the company offers DSP algorithms, DSP core technology, and integrated DSP-based solutions.

Customers for DSP Group's technologies and products include industry leaders such as Microsoft, Motorola, Intel, VLSI Technology, LSI Logic, Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Philips, Siemens, GEC Plessey, Matra, Alcatel, British Telecom, France Telecom, Spain Telefonica, and others.

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Note to Editors: TrueSpeech is a registered trademark of DSP Group Inc. Microsoft is a registered trademark and Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corp. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are those of their respective companies.

CONTACT: DSP Group Inc.

Beverly Rindfleisch/Ron Richter, 408/986-4300