Toshiba aims new DSPs at portable audio applications
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Story posted 9 a.m. EST/6 a.m., PST, 8/18/99
TOKYO -- A new series of digital signal processors (DSPs) announced today by Toshiba Corp. support a wide
range of audio compression formats, including those used in silicon audio players, DVD players and TVs.
Toshiba's new TC9446F-004 can incorporated in decoders for MP3 and AAC sources -- compression formats
widely used for downloading audio files from the Internet. According to Toshiba, this is the first single-chip
DSP solution that supports decoding of both the AAC and MP3 compression formats.
The TC9446F-003 is suitable for decoders supporting Dolby Digital, the Digital Theater System used in DVD
and other audio-visual systems, and Dolby ProLogic.
Tosbiba is targeting the growing use of flash-memory-based portable audio players to store and play music
downloaded from the Internet. The market for such players is expected to grow rapidly, as flash-memory cards
increase in density and the Internet becomes a major medium for music distribution.
The new Toshiba DSPs feature processing speed that are four times faster than previous, and offer half the
power consumption.
Multiple applications can be programmed into the chips up to the limits of total memory capacity. One megabit
of external SRAM can be used as a data RAM. Functions such as digital filters, sound-field control for hall
simulations, an equalizer and dynamic range controls can be integrated, Toshiba said.
Samples will be available in October at $17 and volume production will follow in November, at an initial volume
of 100,000 a month.
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