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ESS Technology
ESS Technology Incorporated is a private manufacturer of computer multimedia products, Audio DACs and ADCs based in Fremont, California with R&D centers in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada and Beijing, China. It was founded by Forrest Mozer in 1983 as Electronic Speech Systems. Robert L. Blair is the CEO and President of the company.
Historically, ESS Technology was most famous for its speech synthesis technology developed by Mozer as well as their line of sound chips for audio cards known as the Audiodrive series. Currently, it is known for the SABRE line of DAC and ADC products used in several audio and mobile devices.
ESS Technologies was founded in 1983 as Electronic Speech Systems, by Professor Forrest Mozer, a space physicist at the University of California, Berkeley and Todd Mozer, Forrest Mozer's son, and Joe Costello, the former manager of National Semiconductor's Digitalker line of talking chips. The company was created at least partially as a way to market Mozer's speech synthesis system (described in US patents 4,214,125, 4,433,434 and 4,435,831) after his (3-year, summer 1978 to summer 1981, extended) contract with National Semiconductor expired sometime in 1983. Costello left soon after its formation and started Cadence Designs with his former boss from National. Fred Chan, a VLSI designer and software engineer[citation needed] in Berkeley, California, joined in 1985, and took over running the company in 1986 when Todd Mozer left for graduate school.
Electronic Speech Systems produced synthetic speech for, among other things, home computer systems like the Commodore 64. Within the hardware limitations of that time, ESS used Mozer's technology, in software, to produce realistic-sounding voices that often became the boilerplate for the respective games. Two popular sound bites from the Commodore 64 were "He slimed me!!" from Ghostbusters and Elvin Atombender's "Another visitor. Stay a while—stay forever!" in the original Impossible Mission.
At some point, the company moved from Berkeley to Fremont, California. Around that time, the company was renamed to ESS Technology. Later, in 1994, Forrest Mozer's son Todd Mozer, an ESS employee, branched off and started his own company called Sensory Circuits Inc., later Sensory, Inc., to market speech recognition technology.
In the mid-1990s, ESS started working on making PC audio, and later, video chips, and created the Audiodrive line of sound chips, used in hundreds of different products. Audiodrive chips were at least nominally Creative Sound Blaster Pro compatible. Many Audiodrive chips also featured an in-house developed version of the OPL3 FM synthesizer chip known as ESFM (or ESFM Synthesizers). These synthesizers were often reasonably faithful to the OPL3, which was an important feature for the time as some competing solutions, including Creative's own CQM synthesis featured in later ISA Sound Blaster compatibles, offered sub-par FM sound quality. Some PCI-based Audiodrives (namely the ES1938 Solo-1) also provided legacy DOS compatibility through Distributed DMA and the SB-Link interface.[citation needed]
In 2001 ESS acquired a small Kelowna design company (SAS) run by Martin Mallinson and continues R&D operations in Kelowna. The Kelowna R&D Center developed the SABRE range of DAC and ADC products that are used in many audio systems and cell phones.
As of today, ESS is known for their SABRE line of DACs and ADCs. The ESS SABRE ES9038P is their flagship and competes against the Japanese-based AKM (Asahi Kasei Microdevices) AK4499EXEQ and American-based Cirrus Logic CS43131 for a share of the market. ESS and AKM dominate the desktop audiophile devices including external DACs and integrated all-in-one DAC/Amp devices. Meanwhile, Cirrus Logic dominates the portable device market, with Apple Inc. being the number one customer accounting for approximately 89% of its chip sales in 2025.
ESS Technology
ESS Technology Incorporated is a private manufacturer of computer multimedia products, Audio DACs and ADCs based in Fremont, California with R&D centers in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada and Beijing, China. It was founded by Forrest Mozer in 1983 as Electronic Speech Systems. Robert L. Blair is the CEO and President of the company.
Historically, ESS Technology was most famous for its speech synthesis technology developed by Mozer as well as their line of sound chips for audio cards known as the Audiodrive series. Currently, it is known for the SABRE line of DAC and ADC products used in several audio and mobile devices.
ESS Technologies was founded in 1983 as Electronic Speech Systems, by Professor Forrest Mozer, a space physicist at the University of California, Berkeley and Todd Mozer, Forrest Mozer's son, and Joe Costello, the former manager of National Semiconductor's Digitalker line of talking chips. The company was created at least partially as a way to market Mozer's speech synthesis system (described in US patents 4,214,125, 4,433,434 and 4,435,831) after his (3-year, summer 1978 to summer 1981, extended) contract with National Semiconductor expired sometime in 1983. Costello left soon after its formation and started Cadence Designs with his former boss from National. Fred Chan, a VLSI designer and software engineer[citation needed] in Berkeley, California, joined in 1985, and took over running the company in 1986 when Todd Mozer left for graduate school.
Electronic Speech Systems produced synthetic speech for, among other things, home computer systems like the Commodore 64. Within the hardware limitations of that time, ESS used Mozer's technology, in software, to produce realistic-sounding voices that often became the boilerplate for the respective games. Two popular sound bites from the Commodore 64 were "He slimed me!!" from Ghostbusters and Elvin Atombender's "Another visitor. Stay a while—stay forever!" in the original Impossible Mission.
At some point, the company moved from Berkeley to Fremont, California. Around that time, the company was renamed to ESS Technology. Later, in 1994, Forrest Mozer's son Todd Mozer, an ESS employee, branched off and started his own company called Sensory Circuits Inc., later Sensory, Inc., to market speech recognition technology.
In the mid-1990s, ESS started working on making PC audio, and later, video chips, and created the Audiodrive line of sound chips, used in hundreds of different products. Audiodrive chips were at least nominally Creative Sound Blaster Pro compatible. Many Audiodrive chips also featured an in-house developed version of the OPL3 FM synthesizer chip known as ESFM (or ESFM Synthesizers). These synthesizers were often reasonably faithful to the OPL3, which was an important feature for the time as some competing solutions, including Creative's own CQM synthesis featured in later ISA Sound Blaster compatibles, offered sub-par FM sound quality. Some PCI-based Audiodrives (namely the ES1938 Solo-1) also provided legacy DOS compatibility through Distributed DMA and the SB-Link interface.[citation needed]
In 2001 ESS acquired a small Kelowna design company (SAS) run by Martin Mallinson and continues R&D operations in Kelowna. The Kelowna R&D Center developed the SABRE range of DAC and ADC products that are used in many audio systems and cell phones.
As of today, ESS is known for their SABRE line of DACs and ADCs. The ESS SABRE ES9038P is their flagship and competes against the Japanese-based AKM (Asahi Kasei Microdevices) AK4499EXEQ and American-based Cirrus Logic CS43131 for a share of the market. ESS and AKM dominate the desktop audiophile devices including external DACs and integrated all-in-one DAC/Amp devices. Meanwhile, Cirrus Logic dominates the portable device market, with Apple Inc. being the number one customer accounting for approximately 89% of its chip sales in 2025.
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