audio/videoZONE Products for the week of October 24, 2005
AMI Semiconductor Says . . .
BelaSigna 250: Audio Processing System Now Available
Next platform in family shows commitment to advanced audio
applications
AMI Semiconductor, a designer and manufacturer of state-of-the-art integrated mixed-signal and structured digital products for the automotive, medical and industrial markets, announced the availability of the BelaSigna 250 audio processing system, the newest member of the BelaSigna product family. Following on the success of the BelaSigna 200, the BelaSigna 250 is targeted at a variety of applications, including communication devices, specialty headsets, remote sensors, and other portable applications requiring audio compression and recording, sound management or echo and speech processing functionality.
The BelaSigna 250 is a complete audio solution with a highly integrated design that includes analog to digital and digital to analog converters, filters, amplifiers and power management, reducing the need for external components. The result is a reduced bill of materials, reduced assembly costs and a simplified design process that saves valuable integration time and improves time-to-market. In addition, its unique parallel processing architecture enables power efficiency without sacrificing performance, resulting in longer operation and standby times and thus, increased battery life.
The BelaSigna 250 is the optimal solution for audio applications and enables extensive flexibility without sacrificing power consumption, allowing device designers to utilize the same platform for a wide range of products with different feature sets. Additionally, the BelaSigna 250 offers excellent compact audio performance allowing for even smaller industrial designs.
"The audio industry is adopting new advanced and integrated technologies
into more basic products and this trend is facilitated by the availability,
affordability and targeted integration of technologies. The BelaSigna 250
will enable a diverse market with practical, deployable advanced audio processing
features," said Dave Coode, audio products manager at AMI Semiconductor.
analogZONE Says...
Anybody who knows my views on DSPs understands that I could care two hoots what is inside the device or even how it does what it does internally. I am only concerned with the goes-in and goes-out functionality of the product as it is used.
AMI Semiconductor has been in the audio processing world for a while; they have two families of product for hearing aids -- the Orela and Tocata Plus -- and they have an earlier BelaSigna 200 for headsets and hands-free kits. This new product is intended to bering the company into the industrial and "commercial" worlds -- the latter presumably meaning products like fast food audio systems?
The Feature Sheet lists only a few numbers and we have no idea how many bits of resolution are used in the two input ADCs (fed from either two microphones -- with no indications of bias power being available -- or two line inputs) or the two output DACs.
After the input Mux there ia a variable gain stage and anti-aliasing filter, in each channel, before the over-sampled ADCs. Various programmable processing and filtering takes place in the digital world and the output DeMux feeds two DACs (with output filtering and variable gain) to line outputs. The signals are also fed to two "digital" audio amplifiers to drive loudspeakers. I presume "digital" means Class-D?
Another whacky thing is the units used for the ROM and various RAM on-chip: kW! Hot stuff that memory!
The clock is on chip but can be driven externally, up to 33 MHz, and the quiescent when clocking at 20 MHz -- with a 1.8-V rail -- is quoted as 5 mA. There is a "smart" power management section on the chip -- presumably sections not being used can be shut down individually -- and the stndby current drain is quoted at <50 µA. System dynamic range is quoted at 88 dB which is probably also a fair indication of the best available system SNR. The actual number may be much lower under adverse compression/decompression scenarios.
Interfaces provided include PCM, UART, SPI, GPIO, I²C and I²S.
Software for various applications can be provided by AMIS or its partners and they have, for example, an electronic stethoscope reference design available on their website.
Despite being amused by some of the digispeak I have to assume that the overall audio numbers are satisfactory for the places where the BelaSigna 250 is likely to be used and that the price will be suitable. It is extremely likely to be found in the future in custom headsets and communication systems where processing for echo, compression, etc are needed.
The BelaSigna 250 is sampling now in CSP-48 and will be in volume production early in 2006. Pricing was not available.