NEC Electronics, Spectrum Signal Processing Announce Sound Festa Audio Chipset and PC Board; Advanced Wavetable Synthesis Provides Stereo Sound for Multimedia PCs.and Spectrum Signal Processing (NASDAQ/NMS:SSPIF/TSE:&SSY SSY Simpson Spence Young (Hong Kong shipbrokers) SSY Siddha Samadhi Yoga SSY Scottish Socialist Youth ) today unveiled the Sound Festa chipset and PC board, a 16-bit stereo solution, providing professional sound quality for PC-based applications. These applications include games, desktop music publishing and CD-ROMs. The Sound Festa chipset and board are the first commercial products to emerge from the NEC-Spectrum strategic relationship, formed in October 1994 to develop and market an audio chipset designed around NEC's SPRX family of digital signal processors (DSP (1) (Digital Signal Processor) A special-purpose CPU used for digital signal processing applications (see definition #2 below). It provides ultra-fast instruction sequences, such as shift and add, and multiply and add, which are commonly used in math-intensive ). NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. Electronics will market the chipset while Spectrum will market the board. "Through our agreement with Spectrum, NEC is able to provide our customers with the high-performance audio solutions they demand for today's applications," said Ichiro Fujitaka, vice president of NEC Electronics. "The Sound Festa chipset allows users to easily upgrade to add new capabilities as new standards are developed. This new technology will bring state-of-the-art audio technology to the market." The Sound Festa chipset is a three-chip solution for high-quality PC sound. At the heart of the chipset is NEC's micron PD77525 DSP sound processor, which was co-developed with Spectrum, controls the high-performance real-time input and output signal processing. NEC's micron PD63310 16-bit stereo CODEC is a high-quality, full-duplex CODEC that incorporates the internal mixer and analog filters. The micron PD77526 music controller chip, developed by Spectrum provides the plug and play compatible interface and is specifically designed to integrate all system components. The result is a leading-edge, high-performance audio solution at an affordable price. This is the first in a series of NEC/Spectrum products that will incorporate MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) An ISO/ITU standard for compressing digital video. Pronounced "em-peg," it is the universal standard for digital terrestrial, cable and satellite TV, DVDs and digital video recorders (DVRs). audio encoding and decoding capabilities and other advanced audio functionalities. "Through this relationship, Spectrum and NEC have joined together to develop and market an advanced audio chipset that incorporates leading-edge technology from both companies," said Barry Jinks jink v. jinked, jink·ing, jinks v.intr. To make a quick, evasive turn: "He jinked every five seconds, and now brought his tank left again" , Spectrum's president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. . "The Sound Festa chipset has been designed into Spectrum's new Sound Festa board to provide our customers with superior quality audio that is versatile enough for a wide range of applications. The chipset is also designed to reside on the PC motherboard, a feature that broadens the market potential substantially." Technology This announcement reflects the combined strength of NEC-Spectrum and joint development work that has emerged from the strategic audio technology relationship formed in October 1994. The new audio technology represents a significant investment in the development of a unique DSP architecture composed of a three-chip solution. The core technology is a revolutionary DSP real-time, multi-tasking operating system developed by Spectrum enables concurrent operation of advanced wavetable synthesis, OPL OPL Open Publication License OPL Olympus Product Line (Sun) OPL outer plexiform layer OPL Organiser Programming Language (PSION) OPL On-Premise Laundry OPL Optical Path Length OPL Open Public License 2/3 emulation, and a programmable effects generator on NEC's DSP sound processor. This new solution eliminates the need for external devices such as wavetable A group of sampled sound waves used in MIDI. See wavetable synthesis and MIDI. (hardware, music) wavetable - A type of sound generator often built in a sound card. A wavetable contains digitised samples of real instrument sounds or effect (FX) sounds. daughter modules, FM synthesis chips, and effects processors. The new DSP-based audio technology offers an industry benchmark of 32 voice polyphony/32 simultaneous timbres, 128 General MIDI instruments plus 8 drum kits. Professional sound quality is based on wavetable samples supplied by Korg Inc., and state-of-the-art wavetable synthesis and special effects algorithms jointly developed by Spectrum and Korg at their studios in Japan. Korg's advanced wavetable set, used in concert and studio music workstations, provides the realism and quality demanded by professional musicians. The NEC-Spectrum audio capabilities are enhanced with a programmable special effects generator enabling unique audio capabilities such as QSound and special effects such as reverberation, chorus, echo, flanging Flanging is a time-based audio effect that occurs when two identical signals are mixed together, but with one signal time-delayed by a small and gradually changing amount, usually smaller than 20 ms (milliseconds). , pitch shifting, delay, stereo delay, filter and panning. The built-in six band parametric equalizer allows real time control of gain, center frequency and bandwidth for optimum room/hall/studio acoustics. Utilizing the DSP based digital pre-amplifier, PC OEMs have the ability to shape, fatten fat·ten v. fat·tened, fat·ten·ing, fat·tens v.tr. 1. To make plump or fat. 2. To fertilize (land). 3. and optimize the high quality audio systems to their preferred bundled speakers. The Sound Festa board supports all popular applications which are compatible with the Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro-audio standards. Minimum system requirements for the Sound Festa include i486 or Pentium processor, 4MB RAM, and DOS 5.0 Connectors include a joystick/MIDI port, line level 16-bit stereo input and output, mic input and CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). interface. The Sound Festa board, with its user interface to Windows 3.1 and 3.11 and Windows 95, provides 2 MB ROM for wavetable samples, and two 32Kx8 SRAMs for special effects. Availability, Pricing and Packaging of Festa Chipset: The Sound Festa chipset is available in engineering samples now, with mass production slated for December 1995. The micron PD77525, micron PD77526, and the micron PD63310 are available in packages of 100-pin thin quad flat packs (TQFPs), 160-pin QFPs and 80-pin TQFPs respectively. Price of the product is $39.50 (U.S) per unit in quantities of 50,000/month. The Sound Festa board is available from Spectrum for $85 (U.S) in OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and quantities. About Spectrum Spectrum Signal Processing, Inc., is a leader in industrial DSP applications, supporting all the major vendors offering digital signal processors. The company offers engineering tools, boards, and software for the PC, VME (Virtual Machine Environment) An operating system from Fujitsu Services (formerly ICL) that runs on its Series 39 mainframes. Introduced in 1975, VME is a comprehensive product that provides a variety of utilities for datacenter operations. and Sbus environments. Spectrum's new multimedia products for the consumer market provide leading edge desktop communications systems enabled through DSP technology. Spectrum is publicly traded on the NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on NMS See NetWare Management System. under the symbol SSPIF and on the Toronto Stock Exchange Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) Canada's largest stock exchange, trading approximately 1,200 company stocks and 33 options. under the symbol SSY. About NEC NEC Electronics Inc, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., manufactures and markets an extensive line of electronic products including ASICs, microprocessors and microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), memories and components, including flat panel displays. The company operates a 676,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Roseville, Calif. NEC Electronics Inc. is an affiliate of NEC Corporation (NIPNY), a $43 billion international manufacturer of computer, communications and semiconductor products. -0- Editors Note : Analysts briefed on this announcement include Will Strauss of Forward Concepts at (602) 968-3759 for further comment on the NEC/Spectrum audio architecture. NEC Electronics, is a registered trademark of NEC Corp. Windows 3.1 and 3.11 and Windows 95 are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft. OPL, OPL2 and OPL3 are registered trademarks of Yamaha. Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro are registered trademarks of Creative Labs. All other registered trademarks or trademarks are property of their respective owners. Sound Festa Feature List ------------------------ Hardware Specifications: micron PD77525 16-bit sound processor (DSP) micron PD63310 16-bit sound CODEC micron PD77526 Music Controller 16-bit ISA bus interface Two 32Kx8 SRAM See static RAM. SRAM - static random-access memory for digital effects 2MB ROM for wavetable samples Optional support for an external Yamaha OPL2 or OPL3 device i486 or Pentium processor 4MB RAM Base software for operating system : Windows 3.1, 3.1, Windows 95 compatible Optional OS/2 support Jumperless installation manager Set-up routines and installation scripts OPL2 and OPL3 software emulation Full 32 voice wavetable synthesis MCI (1) (Media Control Interface) A high-level programming interface from Microsoft and IBM for controlling multimedia devices. It provides commands and functions to open, play and close the device. (2) (Microwave Communications Inc. compliant audio drivers QSound support Sound Blaster support Wavetable samples by Korg Special audio effects- reverb re·verb Informal n. 1. A reverberative effect produced in recorded music by electronic means. 2. A device used for producing this effect. intr. & tr.v. chorus, digital pre-amp, parametric equalization CONTACT: NEC Electronics Inc. Literature Hotline (Reader Contact) 800/366-9782 Allison Niday, (Press Contact) 415/965-6124 aniday@el.nec.com or Spectrum Signal Processing Erin Kingston, 604/421-5422 erin_kingston@spectrum signal.bc.ca or Cohn & Wolfe Lisa Stein, 310/226-3021 lisa_stein@yr.com |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion