To: Sandra Simon who wrote (2934 ) 4/25/1999 6:30:00 AM From: Walter Morton Respond to of 18366
News on TI's new class of DSP. Mark your calendars: "Lucent New Ventures Group, in Middletown, N.J., announced Wednesday that it is working with e.Digital of San Diego on the development of a music player that will use a new Lucent audio coding algorithm ported to a yet-to-be-announced DSP from Richardson, Texas-based TI. TI, the market leader in DSPs, is being challenged by a joint venture of Lucent Microelectronics and Motorola called StarCore, which this week revealed details of its first DSP core. Although StarCore has not yet been released to the market, Lucent's coder would have the ability to be used with a StarCore-based DSP whenever such a product became available, according to Lucent, in Murray Hill, N.J. "The initial porting is to the TI DSP, but we can port it to any DSP that met the particular requirements of a manufacturer," said Rachel Walkden, director of audio initiatives with the Lucent New Venture Group. Lucent's Enhanced Perceptual Audio Coder is a new version of the Perceptual Audio Coder developed by Bell Labs, the R&D arm of Lucent Technologies. It is an audio compression algorithm that provides high-quality audio through improved quantization and coding, and at low bit rates. EPAC's improved psychoacoustic modeling, based on Bell Labs research, produces CD-transparent sound at 128 kilobits per second. "The quality of the sound we've heard with EPAC on our hardware platform is exceptional," said Fred Falk, CEO of e.Digital. "We know what people want in an Internet music download player: great sound in a compact device that's robust and well-priced." The player will be on the market in time for Christmas, he said. In addition to the superior sound of EPAC files, Lucent's proprietary technology adds a high level of security not available with the open MP3 format, which lets users play downloadable music from the Internet for free. "Our security system gives the content holder control for distribution," said Joyce Eastman, director of audio for Lucent's New Ventures Group. "Music can be distributed for free under this scheme. That's not our choice. It gives you that control. MP3 does not." The e.Digital device also will use a new family of DSPs from TI, based on the C54 platform. Gary Johnson, worldwide manager of DSPs at TI, said the DSP is "a new processor for a new market," but could not reveal further details. TI will announce the product at the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose, Calif., May 3 to 6." InformationWeek