17. An electronic system configured to perform speech processing comprising: an audio detection system configured to receive a signal and generate a representation of speech as a sparse set of phonetic events in time; a memory having stored therein a database of keyword models forming an ensemble of filters based upon Poisson rate parameters describing an evolution of phonetic events associated with each keyword in the database of keywords; a processor configured to: i) receive the representation of speech from the audio detection system; ii) decompose the representation of speech into a sparse set spare set of phonetic impulses; iii) access the database of keywords and convolve the sparse set of phonetic impulses with the ensemble of filters; iv) identify keywords within the speech signal based on iii); and v) control operation the electronic system based on the keywords identified in iv).
19. The system of claim 17 wherein the processor is configured calculate a score vector based on the convolving of the sparse set of phonetic impulses with ensemble of filters.