e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

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Concerto in cheap

PREVIEW: Music chip should lead to sub-$50 audio players

Maury Wright, Editor-in-Chief -- CommVerge, 8/1/2002


Even as the recording industry languishes in a largely self-afflicted slump, music fans have enjoyed a banner year in terms of compelling new flash-, hard-disk-, and CD-based digital audio players. Moreover, those players are getting downright cheap. With its new CS7410 music processor, Cirrus Logic plans to keep the trend moving for CD-based portables and bookshelf systems.

The company claims the new chip will enable sub-$50 CD-based portables that can play standard audio CDs and compressed digital audio in MP3 and Windows Media formats. The chip itself costs $7.50 in high volume, and the company claims that the entire bill of materials for a portable player could come in under $30 in high volume. The chip includes a MIPS-based RISC processor, a 16-bit audio DSP, RAM, ROM, and a digital-to-analog converter.

Ironically, the CS7410 is a departure from the architecture Cirrus has ridden to success in its Maverick products for portable audio players. While Maverick relied on an ARM RISC core, the 7410 includes the work of LuxSonor Semiconductors, which Cirrus acquired last fall. While Cirrus won't comment on licensing terms, I'd speculate that a favorable MIPS license is one reason that the new chip can deliver lower-priced players. Otherwise it would be a curious move for Cirrus to turn away from a proven and well-understood platform.

The CS7410 does lack some features that many customers might demand in a portable player. In trying to hit a cost minimum, the designers left out an LCD controller and a flash/hard-disk interface. The company claims a CD-based configuration will prove most popular and could be delivered at the lowest cost. Perhaps, but users of players that can deliver hours of music like user interfaces that allow them to organize their music. So an external display controller will be necessary in most products, and I'd argue that a disk interface would also have been justified.

Still I can see the sub-$50 players streaming off the shelves come the holiday season.
http://www.e-insite.net/commvergemag/index.asp?layout=article&stt=000&articleid=CA236122&...
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