Industry's Most Comprehensive Audio Solution
In use by a range of silicon companies, the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform enhances the formidable MIPS® ecosystem, which is comprised of over one hundred million dollars of software, tools and peripheral IP already ported to the industry-standard MIPS architecture. Now licensees can implement the audio algorithms using a dedicated MIPS-Based co-processor or leverage the inherent processor headroom in many consumer applications to run audio codecs in addition to functions typically handled by "host" processors. These approaches will cut overall system costs, reduce or eliminate royalty payments to DSP vendors and speed MIPS-Based designs to market by stripping months from the SOC development cycle.
All audio algorithms have been optimized for the MIPS32® instruction set and offer must-have audio technology including Dolby® Digital, MPEG audio, Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA), and SRS TruSurround XT® technology from SRS Labs.
"The MIPS Consumer Audio Platform is another way we are giving customers the flexibility to optimize system configurations using a single industry-standard processor architecture," said Russ Bell, vice president of marketing at MIPS Technologies. "Using our optimized platform, licensees can develop and maintain a single audio subsystem to target multiple consumer products, ranging from mobile audio players to high-end consumer devices."
The following codecs are ready for licensing from Fraunhofer, Microsoft, MIPS Technologies or Sonic Solutions. Additional codecs are being developed and will be announced as they become available.
| Audio Vendor | Algorithms |
| Fraunhofer | MP3 (MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Layer-3) decoder |
| Microsoft | Windows Media Audio |
| MIPS Technologies | Dolby Digital decoder |
| Sonic Solutions | Dolby Digital encoder |
Industry Leaders Participating in the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform
Surpassing the Performance and Power Challenges for Consumer Applications
Audio processing performance is increasing as much as 300% as chipsets are required to process multiple audio streams simultaneously. Furthermore, many devices are operating on low power budgets to lengthen the audio experience.
As the performance leader in the embedded industry, with speeds up to 550 MHz for a 24Kcâ„¢ core, the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform allows SOC designers the flexibility to run audio algorithms on the host CPU or in a dedicated MIPS RISC co-processor. This eliminates the need to partition audio streams and support dual RISC/DSP software tool chains and processor architectures. By leveraging the synthesizability of a MIPS Technologies core, licensees can configure their SOCs for a range of options such as power, area or performance depending upon market requirements. And because the MIPS architecture is an industry-standard, licensees can unify hardware specifications to take advantage of the broad range of software, tools and peripheral IP already ported to the architecture.
Availability
The MIPS Consumer Audio Platform is available today for licensing by semiconductor companies worldwide. Please contact www.mips.com or call +1 650 567 5000 for more information.
About MIPS Technologies
MIPS Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital consumer and business applications. The company drives the broadest architectural alliance that is delivering 32- and 64-bit embedded RISC solutions. The company licenses its intellectual property to semiconductor companies, ASIC developers and system OEMs. MIPS Technologies and its licensees offer the widest range of robust, scalable processors in standard, custom, semi-custom and application-specific products. The company is based in Mountain View, Calif., and can be reached at +1 (650) 567-5000 or www.mips.com.