CEVA Introduces Industry's Most Compact and Power-Efficient Single-Core DSP Solution for HD Audio Applications

CEVA-HD-Audio™ offers 550 MHz performance, native 32-bit DSP architecture to address demanding audio requirements of emerging home entertainment devices

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Jan. 15, 2009 -- CEVA, Inc., a leading licensor of silicon intellectual property (SIP) platform solutions and DSP cores, today announced a comprehensive single-core solution for advanced HD audio applications - CEVA-HD-Audio™. The configurable and programmable platform addresses the most demanding audio requirements of home entertainment and consumer products, including Blu-ray DVDs, DTVs, set-top boxes and other home A/V devices.

Based on the high-performance 32-bit CEVA-TeakLite-III™ DSP core running at speeds of up to 550MHz, the highly-optimized CEVA-HD-Audio platform is the most compact and power-efficient solution available for HD audio integration into home entertainment and consumer ICs. The CEVA-TeakLite-III DSP core has been adopted by several consumer IC vendors for HD audio applications to date, and is currently being designed into a next generation Blu-ray DVD chip by one of the world's leading DVD IC vendors.

CEVA-HD-Audio meets the requirements of products ranging from entry-level, memory-constrained devices such as digital TVs and set-top-boxes, to performance-hungry applications such as Blu-ray DVD players that require sophisticated post-processing functions. Together with the CEVA-TeakLite-III DSP core, the single-core platform includes; a configurable memory subsystem; a large set of audio codecs optimized for the DSP in a typical audio system; and a complete software development kit (SDK) for quick and easy system development and integration into a system-on-chip (SoC).

"Advanced audio capabilities in today's electronic products require a robust and flexible processing solution. Requirements such as higher bit rates, an increased number of audio channels, higher quality codecs and advanced post-processing have made lower performance programmable approaches insufficient," said Eran Briman, vice president of corporate marketing at CEVA. "CEVA-HD-Audio combines a proven, high-performance DSP engine with customized audio implementation capabilities in a single-core solution. With this approach, product developers can implement advanced audio functions in their next-generation products more efficiently using an architecture that has shipped in more than one billion devices to date."

Thought out implementation of audio codecs

The data traffic in HD audio applications presents unique system challenges, including high latency external memory, limited system speed and low access priority. CEVA-HD-Audio addresses those challenges with a complete set of optimized audio codecs, including memory overlay support that takes advantage of a generic DMA controller. By adapting the audio algorithms and codec flow accordingly, CEVA ensures the solution meets the stringent requirements of advanced audio systems, without compromising die size or power consumption. Applying these optimizations also allows developers of low-cost audio solutions to reduce the BOM by supporting slow DDR memories.

The CEVA-HD-Audio solution's optimized HD audio codecs support from 2 channels up to 7.1 channels with various bit-rates. Audio codecs supported include: MP3, AAC-LC, HE-AAC, WMA, AC-3, RealAudio, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD MA, DTS-HD HR and others.

The CEVA-TeakLite-III DSP core, at the center of the CEVA-HD-Audio solution, features native 32-bit processing, including 32-bit multiplier with 72-bit accumulation for full data precision. In addition, its strong bit-manipulation capabilities for stream processing and 32-bit FFT support enable a highly efficient implementation of audio codecs. A well-balanced 10-stages pipeline allows the DSP to support high speed implementations, making it ideal as a single-core for most demanding HD audio use-cases.

Development Tools and Support

As with all CEVA solutions, the CEVA-HD-Audio solution is supported by a robust Software Development Kit (SDK) that includes software development tools, development boards, software system drivers and RTOS, to allow the licensee quick and easy system development and integration. The development tools run on Windows, Solaris and Linux, and are supported by a worldwide customer service team. CEVA-HD-Audio is further complemented by extensive algorithms and applications from CEVA and the CEVAnet third-party development community.

To learn more about CEVA-HD-Audio, visit www.ceva-dsp.com/hdaudio

Availability

The CEVA-HD-Audio solution is currently available for licensing. For more information, contact sales@ceva-dsp.com.

About CEVA, Inc.

Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., CEVA is a leading licensor of silicon intellectual property (SIP) platform solutions and DSP cores for mobile handsets, consumer electronics and storage applications. CEVA's IP portfolio includes comprehensive solutions for multimedia, audio, voice over packet (VoP), Bluetooth and Serial ATA (SATA), and a wide range of programmable DSP cores and subsystems with different price/performance metrics serving multiple markets. In 2007, CEVA's IP was shipped in over 225 million devices. For more information, visit http://www.ceva-dsp.com/