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First Look: NEC audio processor extends mobile device play to 50 hours Bernard Cole Santa Clara, Ca. – NEC Electronics America, Inc. has just introduced a new family of AP processors that it says will allow 50 hours of continuous playback on mobile phones. The single-chip uPD99910 audio processor integrates a central processing unit (CPU) and digital signal processor (DSP) dedicated to music playback and an interface dedicated to copyright protection media. Designed to be a companion chip to an application processor, NEC Electronics' uPD99910 device appropriates and optimizes the music playback function of the application processor, incorporates an SD Memory Card interface and supports Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) copyright protection technology. According to Kugao Ouchi, general manager, digital consumer and connectivity strategic business unit, NEC, the power saved by having the playback-dedicated CPU and DSP operate in place of the application processor allows 50 hours of continuous music to be played back using existing resources such as user interface software. "The functional sophistication of mobile phones continues to increase, and music playback is one of the most popular functions to emerge recently,” he said. “Current mobile phones tend to realize the music playback function through the application processor, which consumes a lot of power and makes it difficult to play music for any length of time. In other mobile phone devices, the CPU and DSP in the application processor are used to play back music and also for other types of processing, including video processing. As a result, the application processor's high performance came at the expense of power efficiency. With a CPU and DSP dedicated to music playback, NEC Electronics' uPD99910 audio processor does not need to engage the application processor and is able to provide 50 hours of continuous music playback using a battery with the same capacity as current battery models-a 10-fold improvement. Because the uPD99910 is a companion chip, said Ouchi, music can be played by downloading the playback program from the application processor. The code used to run the program can be stored in the application processor's flash memory, with only a small amount of music playback code stored in the uPD99910 audio processor, thereby reducing internal memory size. To learn more, go to www.am.necel.com. For more information about topics, issues and technologies mentioned in this story go to the flashing icon in the upper left corner on any page or go to the iAppliance Web Views page and call up the associatively-linked Java/XML-based Web map of the iApplianceWeb site. |
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