Wireless audio demo board for RF applications

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Mar 1, 2007

Two-board wireless audio demonstration board comprises an RF transmitter and receiver, to showcase the breadth of technologies available

Symmetry Electronics has developed a wireless audio demonstration board, a two-board solution consisting of an RF transmitter and receiver, to showcase the breadth of technologies on its line card.

The board set includes embedded RF power amplifiers, 8bit microcontrollers, serial flash memory, and power management ICs, all from a select group of Symmetry suppliers.

The device is equipped to take external inputs, such as CD players, iPods, or other MP3 players, as well as internal MP3 files stored in the embedded flash memory.

"These wireless audio demonstration boards highlight several key embedded RF technologies from SST, NEC as well as others, and help engineers by giving them a working reference design for RF applications", says David Beck, Director of Technical Marketing for Symmetry Electronics.

The transmitter board is capable of transporting uncompressed CD-Quality audio to the receiver board over distances up to 45m.

The receiver board can connect to speakers or headphones through a standard headphone jack and includes a play/pause function which demonstrates the board's ability to send back discrete commands in parallel to the streaming audio data.

The transmitter board also includes control functions for play/pause as well as track selection and the ability to switch between audio inputs.

Both boards can be powered by battery or by external DC power.

The wireless audio demonstration board was designed using a number of products and suppliers from Symmetry Electronics' line card including a 2.4GHz wireless audio transceiver from Nordic Semiconductor, an RF power amplifier and serial flash memory from SST, two 8bit Microcontrollers from NEC and power management solutions from Torex Semiconductor.

Datasheets, schematics, layout files, and additional information on Symmetry's wireless audio demonstration board are available from Symmetry.