Tokyo, October 24, 2005 --- NEC Corporation today announced that
it has succeeded in the development of
Japanese-English/English-Japanese, automatic speech translation
software for single-chip multi-core processors for small devices
such as mobile phones, capable of operation at high speeds with low
power consumption. NEC verified the high-speed automatic speech
translation processing capability of this software on NEC
Electronics' MP211 (note 1*) application processor for mobile
phones, at an operating frequency of 200MHz, proving that operation
of interpretation applications is technologically feasible on small
devices like mobile phones.
Supporting a 50,000-word rich vocabulary, this software realizes
automatic speech-to-speech interpretation of travel conversation
through the development of a new parallel speech recognition method
(note 2*) for single-chip processors with several CPU cores, and a
compact, lexical-rule-based, machine translation engine that unites
dictionaries with grammar (note 3*) that is operable on small
devices.
The features of this software include:
(1)A parallel, large-vocabulary, continuous speech recognition
engine, which is built with a database consisting of a wide-range
of conversation sounds and words that enables accurate speech
recognition of spoken words.
(2)A lexical-rule-based, machine translation engine, which
achieves high-performance translation of spoken words utilizing
dictionaries/grammar, compiled from a wide range of language
knowledge data.
(3)An advanced wave-concatenative speech synthesis engine, which
realizes high-performance reading through an advanced,
wave-concatenative speech synthesis method based on a wide-range of
speech data.
(4)A total integration module that controls collaborative
operation of the speech recognition engine, the machine translation
engine, and the speech synthesis engine realizing automatic
translation on a single processor for mobile phones.
With the advancement of an information society and increased
freedom of movement across borders, the dynamic development of
technology supporting automatic speech interpretation and
translation to support communication between different languages is
rapidly progressing.
NEC's developments in this area include;
- Automatic Japanese – English/English – Japanese translation
software for notebook PCs in 1999
- Commercial launch of "Tabitsu" (American English
version),communication software supporting English travel
conversation, in 2001
- PDA-operational Japanese – English travel conversation,
automatic speech translation software in 2002
The next natural development for NEC was to expand this
technology to small, light-weight portable devices that can be used
anytime, anywhere. However, in order to achieve this goal it was
necessary to realize large CPU power, required for speech
recognition, and machine translation technology for interpretation,
which are both exceedingly difficult to achieve on low-power
multi-core processors for small devices such as mobile phones. NEC
has accomplished this development through the synthesis of its
proprietary parallel speech recognition technology and its compact
machine translation technology with its multi-core processor
technology.
NEC will continue to advance research of its speech recognition
and language processing technologies toward the realization of a
society where communication is possible anytime, anywhere.
About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) is one of the
world's leading providers of Internet, broadband network and
enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized
needs of its diverse and global base of customers. Ranked as one of
the world's top patent-producing companies, NEC delivers tailored
solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron
devices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networks,
and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through NEC
Electronics Corporation. The NEC Group employs more than 140,000
people worldwide and had net sales of 4,855 billion yen (approx.
$45.4 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 2005. For additional
information, please visit the NEC home page at:
http://www.nec.com
* Newsroom :
About NEC Electronics
NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) specializes in
semiconductor products encompassing advanced technology solutions
for the high-end computing and broadband networking markets, system
solutions for the mobile handsets, PC peripherals, automotive and
digital consumer markets, and platform solutions for a wide range
of customer applications. NEC Electronics Corporation has 26
subsidiaries worldwide including NEC Electronics America, Inc. and
NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH. Additional information about NEC
Electronics worldwide can be found at www.necel.com.
Note
(1) MP211:
With the combination of three ARM926EJ-S CPU cores and NEC
Electronics' digital signal processor, the single-chip MP211
processor offers high-performance parallel processing capabilities
optimized for applications such as mobile phones that are sensitive
to power consumption requirements.
(2) Parallel speech recognition method
(parallel, large-vocabulary, continuous speech recognition
engine)
Through adoption of an acoustic look-ahead technique that can
reduce word-search space, NEC's proprietary speech recognition
method realizes acceleration of the entire interpretation process,
dividing it into three steps comprised of recognition processing,
reconstruction and maintenance of accuracy.
(3) Lexical-rule-based, machine translation engine:
This is a translation engine based on dictionary storing of each
word's lexical rules that can easily expand both general
translation rules and individual translation rules for fixed form
expression, and which realizes excellent software downsizing and
enhancement of translation quality.
Press Contact: Diane Foley
NEC Corporation
d-foley@ax.jp.nec.com
+81-3-3798-6511
Sophie Yamamoto
NEC Electronics Corporation
sophie.yamamoto@necel.com
Tel: 81-44-435-1676