Platform simplifies audio SoC development

Whether in mobile MP3 players, DVD-recordable devices or plasma TVs, servicing the expanding market for consumer audio playback devices just got easier thanks to MIPS Technologies.

Whether in mobile MP3 players, DVD-recordable devices or plasma TVs, servicing the expanding market for consumer audio playback devices just got easier thanks to MIPS Technologies.

Working with leaders in the consumer electronics software industry - such as Dolby Laboratories, Fraunhofer, Microsoft, Sonic Solutions and SRS Labs - MIPS Technologies has introduced the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform, a common foundation that enables customers to implement the world's most popular audio codecs (coders and decoders) on MIPS-based SoCs targeting high-growth embedded markets.

In use by a range of silicon companies, the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform enhances the formidable MIPS ecosystem, which comprises over $100 million million of software, tools and peripheral IP already ported to the industry-standard MIPS architecture.

Now licensees can implement the audio algorithms using a dedicated MIPS-based coprocessor or leverage the inherent processor headroom in many consumer applications to run audio codecs in addition to functions typically handled by "host" processors.

These approaches will cut overall system costs, reduce or eliminate royalty payments to DSP vendors and speed MIPS-based designs to market by stripping months from the SoC development cycle.

All audio algorithms have been optimised for the MIPS32 instruction set and offer must-have audio technology including Dolby Digital, MPEG audio, Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA), and SRS TruSurround XT technology from SRS Labs.

"The MIPS Consumer Audio Platform is another way we are giving customers the flexibility to optimise system configurations using a single industry-standard processor architecture", said Russ Bell, Vice President of Marketing at MIPS Technologies.

"Using our optimised platform, licensees can develop and maintain a single audio subsystem to target multiple consumer products, ranging from mobile audio players to high-end consumer devices".

Many codecs are ready for licensing from Fraunhofer, Microsoft, MIPS Technologies or Sonic Solutions.

Additional codecs are being developed and will be announced as they become available.

"Consumers all over the world are demanding a high quality audio experience in a wide range of applications.

Working with industry leaders such as MIPS Technologies, Dolby is helping to ensure its industry-leading audio technologies continue to proliferate across multiple consumer electronic devices".

"This will expand the market opportunities of our partners and help consumers get broad access to the highest quality audio experience that Dolby technologies deliver", said Craig Eggers, Director, Consumer Electronics Marketing at Dolby Laboratories.

"With our audio codecs integrated in the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform, end users will have easy access to Fraunhofer technology strengthening the open MPEG standards", said Harald Popp, Head of the Multimedia Realtime Systems Department at Fraunhofer IIS.

"To date we have seen strong demand for the optimised technology from customers and look forward to working with MIPS Technologies to grow our mutual market opportunities", added Popp.

"As the leader in DVD/CD creation, Sonic engineered the Dolby Digital AC-3 Encoder for the MIPS platform because we saw the significant potential for MIPS processor cores to make software audio encoding practical in a wide variety of consumer electronics devices", said Jim Taylor, General Manager of Sonic's Advanced Technology Group.

"Our Dolby Digital AC-3 encoder is optimised for the MIPS platform and can be easily integrated into any system to provide high quality, DVD-ready audio".

"Through our partnership with MIPS Technologies, we are offering designers a seamless method for integrating our technology into their SoCs", said Lupita Ho, Director of Strategic IC Partner Development at SRS Labs.

"The Consumer Audio Platform provides flexibility and a faster time to market, thereby allowing us to quickly reach a significant majority of audio device manufacturers worldwide".

"Our close partnership with MIPS Technologies continues to help establish TruSurround XT as a standard in the consumer marketplace and we are pleased that they have chosen it as a must-have technology in their platform".

Audio processing performance is increasing as much as 300% as chipsets are required to process multiple audio streams simultaneously.

Furthermore, many devices are operating on low power budgets to lengthen the audio experience.

As the performance leader in the embedded industry, with speeds up to 550MHz for a 24Kc core, the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform allows SoC designers the flexibility to run audio algorithms on the host CPU or in a dedicated MIPS RISC coprocessor.

This eliminates the need to partition audio streams and support dual RISC/DSP software tool chains and processor architectures.

By leveraging the synthesisability of a MIPS Technologies core, licensees can configure their SoCs for a range of options such as power, area or performance depending on market requirements.

And because the MIPS architecture is an industry-standard, licensees can unify hardware specifications to take advantage of the broad range of software, tools and peripheral IP already ported to the architecture.

The MIPS Consumer Audio Platform is available today for licensing by semiconductor companies worldwide.

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