“Industry's first” high definition audio player with ultra low power consumption for new generation music phones
(Technology News, 27 Feb 2008 )
Austriamicrosystems has announced the first member of a new family of media player ICs based on innovative IP aimed at bridging the gap between the audio experience of music phones and Hi-Fi home audio devices.
The AS3532 is an innovative music player subsystem whose core is based on a newly developed audio engine and audio post-processor which act as co-processors to an ARM central programmable unit. The audio engine, in a fully hardwired context, executes the decompression and playback of most popular compressed audio formats, like MP3, WMA and AAC for the least amount of power consumption with zero CPU load.
The audio post-processor implements an Asynchronous Sample Rate Converter (ASRC) with near transparent quality, a multi-channel mixer with limiting function and a 10 bands graphics equalizer and supports 192 KHz sample rates at 24 bits dynamic range for high definition audio processing. Three sets of I2S outputs can independently control stereo speakers, subwoofer and headphone or line outputs; these can also be utilized as multi-channel audio outputs. The AS3532 audio subsystem additionally includes a stereo PDM digital microphone input thereby completing all audio requirements for new generation mobile phones.
Interfaces included in the AS3532 can support either peer mode to a baseband phone IC or a “Black Box” companion music sub-system. In the latter case, the IC provides direct support for latest generation removable and embedded flash memory types with 4/8/16-bit hardware ECC, for MLC NAND Flash, iNAND, LBA NAND, moviNAND, oneNAND and removable card formats like SD2.0, MMC+, CE-ATA, MS PRO and CF.
An on-chip 512Kbytes buffer memory in the AS3532 music player IC allows single chip support of all key audio formats, compressed, lossless and high definition, polyphonic sequenced content, wavetable synthesizer, 3D positional sound, virtualizer engines and other digital audio effects. The AS3532 is complemented by a comprehensive software suite that has matured over three generations of products delivered in the multimedia player market. The SDK has passed the stringent test criteria of the Certified for Windows Vista program for downloadable content.
