QuickLogic Lands Alexa Certification for Voice-Activated Hearables Due in 2021

Chipmaker QuickLogic in Q4 “finally" completed certification testing of its “voice-activated hearable reference design” with Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service team, said CEO Brian Faith on a fiscal Q4 earnings call Wednesday. “This has been a long and difficult process taking much longer than we ever thought. The delay was brought on by challenges working with the communications chip that was not ours.” QuickLogic also needed to overcome COVID-19 work restrictions “that prevented our engineering team from working on site to solve the issues,” said Faith. “In spite of these challenges, we persevered.” QuickLogic also completed work on a second “voice-related project” late in Q4, ended Jan. 3. The second project involves remote controls, “but we didn't give a lot of airtime” to it on Wednesday's call, he said. “I do see that going to production” in 2021, he said. “When combined, we are now confident that these voice-enabled solutions, which are scheduled to come to market later this year, will materialize into revenue for us in the second half of fiscal 2021.” Now that QuickLogic is “finally able to say that we're Amazon-certified,” it’s going to move along “some of these hearable opportunities that we've already been cultivating for some time,” he said.