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For more information contact:
Shailja Tewari
Director of Marketing
Sound Design Technologies
905.635.0804 Ext. 2870
stewari@sounddes.com

Sound Design Technologies Launches Inspiria Extreme™ DSP for Hearing Aids on Voyageurii™ DSP Platform

BURLINGTON, Ontario – March 31, 2009 – Sound Design Technologies (SDT) a leading designer and manufacturer of ultra-low power semiconductor solutions for hearing instruments announces the launch of INSPIRIA™ Extreme DSP for hearing aids which will be unveiled during AudiologyNOW! 2009 in Dallas, Texas.

INSPIRIA™ EXTREME (SA3286) is a premium DSP product featuring iSceneDetect™ environmental classification, Evoke™ Acoustic Indicators, 128-band Noise Reduction, adaptive feedback cancellation, real-ear feedback path measurement capabilities, packaged in a miniaturized VOYAGEURII™ hybrid offering superior 20-bit wide bandwidth (up to 16 kHz) sound quality, delivering unprecedented sound quality, comfort and audibility to hearing aid wearers.

Advanced features offered on Inspiria™ Extreme include:

iSceneDetect™ 1.0 Environmental Classification: iSceneDetect™ environmental classification algorithm senses the user’s environment and classifies it into one of six categories: Quiet, Speech-in-Quiet, Noise, Speech-in-Noise, Music, and Wind.  Signal processing settings are then automatically adjusted to maximize user comfort and audibility in each environment, without any user interaction.

Evoke™ Advanced Acoustic Indicators Editor™ allows the creation of hearing aid status indicator and alert sounds that are more complex, more pleasing and more meaningful to the end user, such as chimes, ring tones, musical melodies etc.

iLog 2.0 Datalogging extends capabilities for hearing-aid counselling and fine tuning with detailed records of the hearing aid user’s environment.  SA3286 supports recording of more than six weeks of detailed short-term usage information as well as long-term usage usage statistics such as frequency of use for each program memory and overall lifetime use of the hearing aid.

Feedback Path Measurement Tool supporting in-situ measurement of the feedback path of the hearing aid, enabling customized fitting of the Feedback Cancellation algorithm.

INSPIRIA™ Extreme is offered as a lead-free RoHS compliant part in SDT’s miniaturized thinSTAX® VOYAGEURII™ hybrid. The extremely small form factor of the product ( 0.215 x 0.124 x 0.067 in3 OR 5.46 x 3.15 x 1.70mm3 ) allows manufacturers to build hearing aids of all form-factors including CIC, ITE, BTE, and mini-BTE styles. Full production quantities are now available.

For additional information on this product, please visit www.sounddesigntechnologies.com, or contact your Sound Design Technologies account manager.

About Sound Design Technologies:

Sound Design Technologies Ltd is a leading designer and manufacturer of ultra-low power semiconductor solutions, algorithms and software infrastructure for hearing instruments, portable battery powered DSP applications, and a contract manufacturing services provider offering a differentiated set of unique manufacturing capabilities for the microelectronics industry. Founded in 2007 via the acquisition of Gennum Corporation's Audio Division and Manufacturing Operations, Sound Design Technologies Ltd. is headquartered in Burlington, Ontario, Canada with additional design, research and development offices in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Additional information is available at: www.sounddesigntechnologies.com

Founded in 1973, the BHI conducts research and engages in hearing health education with the goal of helping people with hearing loss to benefit from proper treatment.