JB- this bud's for you:
Digital-audio engine eliminates PC middleman.
At first glance, PortalPlayer's Tango platform seems like any other DSP targeting the hot digital-audio market. It decodes AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), ATRAC (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding), MP3, QDesign, and Windows Media Audio formats and also comprehends SDMI (Secure Digital Media Initiative) and other watermarking and digital-security protocols. But take a closer look, and you'll notice the company's PP5001 controller also supports real-time MP3 encoding by combining an ARM7 TDMI core with a custom co-processor, 32 kbytes of SRAM, and 8 kbytes of cache. You can couple the PP5001 with a CD-ROM drive to create a direct-to-MP3 ripping platform, with no interim computer.
The PP5001 provides direct hardware interfaces to a variety of removable-storage media, including CompactFlash and IDE/ATA-33, DataPlay, PocketZip, MultimediaCard, Secure Digital card, and Memory Stick. Embedded memory controllers hook up to one to two banks of external synchronous DRAM and to one to two banks of flash memory with 128-Mbyte maximum density per bank. The PP5001 also includes a USB 1.0 interface, dual RS-232 ports, an LCD controller, 16 GPIOs, and an AC '97 Version 2.1 I2 S interface. The Tango platform costs $40 (1000) and includes not only the chip but also its firmware (with licenses for codecs and digital rights-management software) and a license to PortalPlayer's optional PC application, the PP7001 Digital Media Manager.
PortalPlayer , 1-408-855-0830, www.portalplayer.com.
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