Cambridge Silicon Radio’s MusiCore
chip combines its Kalimba DSP with a
Bluetooth interface. It replaces a Bluetooth
transceiver while offloading the
host processor’s audio chores, improving
performance while reducing power
requirements. Also, it can directly access
MP3 files in shared, external SD flash
memory for music playback when the
host processor is powered down to provide
battery life on par with MP3 players
(about 100/80 hours for wired/wireless
audio). It can handle transcoding chores
for this mode as well as PCM streams
from the host, delivering Bluetooth or
speaker-based stereo output with performance
that’s better than most phones.
The chip costs about $1 more than CSR’s
Bluetooth-only solution. The development
kit, priced under $2000, includes
host drivers for MusiCore and shared
SD memory access.
www.csr.com