Archive | Feedback

SigmaTel Introduces a D-Major Audio Decoder Designed to Enable MP3 Playback on USB Portable Mass Storage Drives

The manufacturer says . . .

ChipCenter's Paul O'Shea says . . .

SigmaTel, Inc. today introduced its latest D-Major product designed specifically to enable MP3 playback on USB portable mass storage drives. By taking advantage of the already successful audio decoder technology used in MP3 players, such as the latest SONICBlue Rio players, SigmaTel is now positioning its next line of products on a fast-growing USB portable mass storage market. A USB portable flash-based storage drive is a small, thumb-sized device that plugs directly into the USB port of a PC or laptop. With no cords to plug in and with no drivers to install (since you use the USB Mass Storage drivers included with the Windows and Macintosh operating systems), it allows direct, instant access for uploading or downloading digital information. Storage capacities for USB portable drives range from 8MB to 2.1GB, far greater than todayıs traditional floppy drive (at 1.44MB). Their size and portability make these devices one of the most revolutionary on the market today, allowing one to carry a large amount of information literally in their pocket. The STMP1342, SigmaTelıs latest product, enables all of the capabilities that current USB portable drives offer with several incredible added benefits. For one, the D-Major solution, by adding a power source and earphone jack to the design, allows the USB drive to transform into an MP3 player! Because of SigmaTel patented technologies, this player could run for as long as 35 hours on a single AA battery, decode both MP3 and WMA digital audio formats and support DRM (Digital Rights Management) for secure audio content. USB portable storage drives have made their way onto store shelves and into major computer maker offerings within the past six months and continue to be well received by both consumers and by hardware reviewers within the press. The solution that SigmaTel brings is a unique one: the ability to bring MP3 audio playback functionality to the current portable-storage-only designs on the market today. "There is a definite surge of interest for these new flash storage devices," says Danny Mulligan, general manager of the audio decoder business unit at SigmaTel. "This latest D-Major product will not only support flash-based USB storage as it is available today, but will also enable the drive to transform into a portable MP3 player ı just imagine if you could hit a ıplayı button on a floppy disk and listen to your favorite music." D-Major audio decoder solutions provide high quality audio playback for portable devices such as MP3-style players, PDAs and cell phones. With D-Major's high level of integration and quality, portable audio devices are attractive to a larger audience because of a lower system cost. SigmaTel, a provider of integrated circuit (IC) design, is converting the real world into a digital experience with its innovative mixed-signal solutions for the digital audio and wireless infrared markets. Since its inception, SigmaTel has built a strong reputation as an innovative developer of mixed-signal ICs, by being first to market with several highly integrated designs. The privately held company, based in Austin, Texas, is committed to providing customers with high performance products along with superior customer service. For more information, visit SigmaTel Web Site

The focus of SigmaTelıs STMP1342 audio decoder chip is the on the thumb drive market. This should be a winning effort for the company since the thumb drive market is taking off as a result of PC manufacturers limiting the number of floppy drives they put in new units. However, users still want to transfer data including MP3 files and the thumb drive is an elegant solution. Another nice feature about the thumb drive is that it can get power from the USB port or it can be used standalone, powered by a battery. SigmaTel shows its digital expertise with this product but also its ability to work with analog. The company was able to integrate all the digital and analog components onto one chip, which is no small accomplishment. Some companies claim they have one chip solutions but they really donıt because the analog isnıt integrated. SigmaTel put all the circuits on one chip to allow the user to download to a hard drive or to Flash memory. Additionally, it can playback, record, deal with user interface issues, and many standard interface buses - all on one chip. The main components of the chip are the CODECS, DAC, ADC, and mixer. It provides USB 1.1 on-chip and integrates functionality to interface to all types of Flash (NAND, SmartMedia, MMC, SC), and has a hardware Compact bus. It has a DC/DC converter to enable power to the device, while the Sigma-Delta 18-bit DAC and headphone amp are used for music playback; and the ADC is used for voice record. The STMP1342 has several blocks including an interrupt block and trace buffer to help with performance of the firmware on the chip. Most of the chip is RAM, providing 96 kwords of RAM, and it also has ROM for boot up. Finally, it can boot from USB, NAND Flash or even EPROM. The STMP1342 uses up to four NAND Flash devices to access the memory space. However, it depends on the size of the NAND Flash devices, which is presently at 128 MB per device. Later this year 256 MB devices will be available. The competition for this product is the SDRAM but it hasnıt proven itself as better than NAND Flash because of power requirements and volatile memory, which causes it to lose data. The strengths of the STMP1342 make it a good fit for the Flash drive market. One of the winning functions of the STMP1342 is its dynamic power management capability. It is optimized for portable devices where it runs different parts of the chip at different voltage levels. It has firmware to control the different voltage levels. The STMP1342 design supports one triple-A or one double-A battery. The dynamic power management function is used for applications like portable CD players. For example, when the portable CD player is turned on the DC/DC converter activates and the ROM decides where to boot, and once it loads the code from the NAND Flash it figures out at what power levels to set the different parts of the chip. All the power settings are set by registers on the chip. Therefore, if you are recording voice then you donıt need the DAC and the chip can turn down the power to the DAC clock. The STMP1342 sells for approximately $10 in 10k quantities. For more information on D-Major audio and the STMP1342, as well as development kit information and sales support, please visit www.sigmatel.com. Datasheets are via password protected access. To get data sheets, send an email to: sales@sigmatel.com.

Analog Main | Product of the Week | Columns | Editorial | Tech Notes

		Click here to get your listing up.