This paper briefly describes the history of speech processing developments leading to the presently available Speak processing strategy. The similarities and differences of the Speak and Continuous Interleaved Sampling (CIS) strategies are then discussed and some recent key experimental observations are examined as a guide to potential future coding strategies. Key issues for future coding strategies and implant designs are the number of electrodes and stimulation rates in use. Consideration of these issues has led to development of a prototype implant to be used for advanced speech-processing research.