Leader in digital signal processing technologies

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Founded in 1983, Lyrtech is a leader of digital signal processing products, solutions and services. We are an ODM and an OEM, we offer a wide array of highly sophisticated digital signal processing products and solutions, and offer complete product development services (turnkey engineering).

To clearly understand what we do, however, you must understand a few concepts.

Digital signal processing

What is it, you ask? To answer this, let's decompose the expression:

Digital

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, digital is of, relating to, or being data in the form of, especially, binary digits. Digital signals are thus series of numbers that “approximate” their analog counterparts at discrete points in time and space. Converting signals from their analog form (real world) to their digital form (computer world) is called digitalization.

Signal

That's easy. Everybody knows what signals are. Whether they're smoke, Morse, or electrical currents, signals are detectable quantities or impulses through which we can transmit information. As hinted above, we deal with two types of signals: analog and digital.

Processing

Last, but far from least. Processing is, loosely, performing mathematical computations on digits to extract information or modify the original string of digits. Many of today’s digital signal processing applications require hundreds of millions of computations per second.

This said, we can surmise that digital signal processing is concerned with the representation of signals by sequences of digits or symbols through digitalization and the processing of these digital signals.

What is it good for?

Digital signal processing finds uses in transforming or enhancing signals—controlling the tone of audio (bass, treble) or stabilizing images are only two examples. Digital signal processing is also used in analysis—detecting specific characteristics to extract information from noise or recognizing specific patterns to make decisions being, again, only two examples. This type of processing is also used to encode and decode signals, as well as to compress and decompress signals.

How is it done?

Central processing units (CPUs) of personal computers process digital signals when you playback music or movies, decompress images, and such. Digital signal processors (DSPs), on the other hand, are dedicated to digital signal processing and designed to perform more demanding digital signal processing than what CPUs are capable. DSPs have several advantages over other types of processors:

  • They're cheap
  • Their internal architecture is specifically designed for digital signal processing
  • They're usually intended for embedded systems—systems designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, often with real-time computing constraints

Other dedicated devices called field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are also capable of digital signal processing. FPGAs are the electronic equivalent of building blocks that can be programmed to fit the realities of the application where they are used. Currently available FPGAs contain more than 2,000 elementary digital signal processing blocks.

Digital signal processing in your daily life

Digital signal processing technologies are used in almost all modern electronic devices, for example:

  • Portable media players
  • Home theater systems
  • Cellular phones
  • Digital camcorders
  • Set-top units (STUs) connected to your digital television
  • Video game consoles
  • Modems connected to your computer
  • Surveillance cameras in shopping malls and banks
  • Intelligent vision sensors in your car
What do we do in all this?

We bring advanced digital signal processing solutions and IP to the world. We don’t do this in the form of end products for your home—we rather market ready-made development platforms and solutions incorporating DSPs and FPGAs for our customers to use in designing their own applications and products. If they are unwilling or unable to design their own applications and products, we offer top-of-the-line product development services that include embedded software design, FPGA design, mechanical design, printed circuit board layout/design, and prototyping. Add to that manufacturing capabilities, and you understand, in a nutshell, our original design manufacturer business model.

Our mission

Digital signal processing is at the heart of our daily lives—cellular phones, digital television, streaming media and a throng of others less obvious—and Lyrtech’s mission is and always has been to be at the forefront of the industry, developing today the digital signal processing technology that will tomorrow be so commonplace as to be invisible, so that our employees, shareholders and the world may profit. We also aim to promote the advancement of digital signal processing technologies around the world.

Our values

Still to come.