Development of a speech processor for laboratory experiments with cochlear implant patients

A laboratory speech processor based on Motorola's DSP56002 chip was developed for cochlear implant research. The hardware of the speech processor is described in detail and the safety issues associated with electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve are discussed. The speech processor is capable of providing high-rate stimulation to six electrodes using short biphasic pulses presented either simultaneously or in an interleaved fashion. Different speech processing algorithms including the continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) strategy were implemented in this processor and tested successfully with cochlear implant patients.