Portable Audio players are handheld devices that play recorded music or speech. Many formats like MP3, ACC or WMA are used for recording the audio. The storage medium used in the players determines the form factor, weight, battery life, user interface, and price of these players.
Ultra-portable players are built with internal flash memory like SmartMedia cards, MultiMediaCards, Secure Digital cards or CompactFlash cards. The available capacities of these cards vary from 8 MB to 4 GB. The portable audio players are moving towards being a portable media player (PMP) with the support of Video as well. A good model will support MPEG-2 and 4, WMV and DivX movie formats, as well as MP3, WAV, ASF and WMA audio files. Some can also receive and record FM radio and voice. The latest PMPs now also support wireless connectivity in addition to USB or Firewire for recording and exchanging music and movies.
The hardware used in these players is being constantly improved to support enhanced quality audio and advanced video compression etc. With the development of miniature 1.8-inch hard disks most of the players now come with a hard disk capacity of 4 GB to 80 GB. The use of Digital Signal Processors and dedicated Mpeg-4 decoders is becoming common.
Cirrus Logic has announced the availability of their portable audio codec, the CS42L55 to manufacturers of portable devices such as media players, navigation devices, wireless headsets, voice...
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Wolfson Microelectronics has announced the launch of the first product in its AudioPlus™ Power Management product line. Wolfson’s WM8350 features an integrated high fidelity audio CODEC...
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Maxim Integrated Products has introduced the MAX9729, a highly integrated headphone amplifier that features patented* DirectDrive™ technology. This DirectDrive architecture produces a...
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Royal Philips Electronics has launched an innovative new Nexperia™ Mobile Multimedia Processor PNX0103, which facilitates super-fast download of content to mobile phones and portable Flash...
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By Larry Przywara, Tensilica, Inc. Audio is becoming pervasive and is being designed into a wide variety of products. Many new chip designs contain an audio processor just in case it’s needed in future product revisions, since an audio processor can often be implemented in under 100,000 gates on a multi-million gate chip. Some consumer devices contain multiple audio processors – a...
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Power MOSFETs contribute to reduced power consumption and miniaturization of cells.
NEC Electronics has long taken a proactive approach to power management, developing and commercializing...
[from NEC Electronics] >>
austria micro systems provides high fidelity audio solutions like analog audio front ends and highly integrated system ICs for MP3 players, personal media players and other mobile devices, as...
[from Austria Microsystems] >>
Giving manufacturers a flexible platform for building portable media player and recorder devices, the Philips Nexperia Personal Media Player reference design combines high-quality digital audio /...
[from NXP] >>
Atmel provides a full range of solutions for digital audio and mass storage systems. Allowing optimized system integration and low power consumption, the AT8xC51SNDx processors are already...
[from Atmel] >>
The portable Internet audio market has exploded with a wide range of products and formats. These products create a whole host of opportunities for consumers and challenges for designers. Freescale...
[from Freescale] >>
Tensilica’s HiFi 2 Audio Engine was carefully crafted to meet the requirements for the broadest possible range of consumer products. The HiFi 2 Audio Engine is available as an audio-extension...
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The VisualAudio is a new software tool for designing and developing audio systems. This article describes its framework, audio modules, and application to audio product development.
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NVM - the Fastest Growing Sector of the Semiconductor Market. Non-volatile memory (NVM) devices retain stored information even without a power source.
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New technologies and products enable portables and TV manufacturers to captivate consumers with remarkable video, audio, and imaging. Here is a roundup of recently introduced products.
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These players use Actel’s A40MX04 and A42MX09 FPGAs respectively to implement application-specific functions. In each case, these Actel FPGAs met the price, power, and performance...
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In an audio circuit, passive components define the gain, provide biasing and power-supply rejection, and establish DC-blocking from one stage to the next. Portable audio, for which space, height,...
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This article examines key parameters affecting headphone amp performance including: PSRR, turn-on transient suppression, and PCB grounding solutions. It focuses on just one application (the...
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The USB 2.0 protocol allows for data transfer rates of up to 480Mbps and supports plug and play hot swappable installation and operation. As a result of the increase in speed, low capacitance ESD...
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This reference design gives manufacturers everything they need to address growing market opportunities for portable media players, recorders, photo viewers, mobile and portable TV & PVR and...
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STMicroelectronics has announced a complete reference design for a high-bit-rate wireless audio solution intended for consumer electronic products such as home theater systems, surround-sound and...
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Freescale Semiconductor introduces the i.MX21 Portable Media Player (PMP) reference design kit based on Freescale’s i.MX21 multimedia applications processor and the Microsoft®...
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The Jupiter 3 FS4023 reference platform is a fully qualified reference design for portable and clock stereo radio applications requiring a low-cost feature-rich DAB/FM solution. Based on Frontier...
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Texas Instruments Incorporated has introduced a monolithic, filter-free, Class-D audio power amplifier with an integrated boost converter, which provides constant output power for portable...
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The AT85C51SND3 single-chip digital music player IC implements a proprietary DSP optimized for audio and an 8-bit 8051 core for the man-machine interface. The device consumes less than 35 mA for a...
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The MB95F146 is a 32-pin microcontroller suitable for small, embedded applications like managing the power supply and remote controller of digital A/V equipment and systems. The MB95F156H comes...
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The LM4673 is a single supply, high efficiency, 2.65W, mono, Class D audio amplifier. A low noise, filterless PWM architecture eliminates the output filter, reducing external component count, board...
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Summit Microelectronics announced the latest addition to the company’s family of multi-output programmable power manager ICs. The SMB119 is targeted at portable consumer equipment and...
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The LM4970 is a LED driver with an audio synchronization mode that virtually eliminates the need for real time software processing for LED lighting effects. The LM4970 includes three individual PWM...
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By Larry Przywara, Tensilica, Inc. Audio is becoming pervasive and is being designed into a wide variety of products. Many new chip designs contain an audio processor just in case it’s needed in future product revisions, since an audio processor can often be implemented in under 100,000 gates on a multi-million gate chip. Some consumer devices contain multiple audio processors – a...