CSR MAP-X™ Demo At IFA Offers Glimpse Of Home Audio’s Future

In the first demonstration of its MAP-X™ media processor product line since acquiring this technology, CSR plc (LSE: CSR)(NASDAQ: CSRE) today offered invited customers an experience of home audio’s future during the IFA 2012 consumer electronics show in Berlin. CSR has combined a CSR8600™ Bluetooth® audio platform with a MAP-X media application processor to create the heart of a fully functional, high-definition audio sound bar, demonstrating how consumer electronics manufacturers can now get a complete home audio solution for entry-level through high-end wired and wireless designs from a single supplier.

“In an age where consumers on the go always have access to their digital music collections through smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, it’s essential that home audio systems should make it easy to extend their enjoyment into the home where they can share and enjoy their collections with full audio fidelity,” said Anthony Murray, Business Group SVP at CSR. “CSR already holds a prominent position in portable wireless audio accessories, and our expanded CSR audio platform now covers the entire breadth of the consumer audio experience, offering the flexibility for manufacturers to readily combine a broad portfolio of hardware and software digital audio processing features, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart®, Wi-Fi® wireless connectivity and digital power amplification options.”

4.1-Channel Sound Bar

The demonstration at the IFA show highlights how the highly integrated MAP-X media application processor and CSR8600 wireless audio platform can be combined to create a 4.1 channel sound bar home audio system that combines high-definition audio decoding over HDMI® with wireless aptX® high-fidelity audio streaming over Bluetooth for connection to smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Additionally, the system supports USB music file browsing and playback, enabling users to select and listen to a variety of WMA, MP3 and AAC files contained on a USB drive inserted into the system. The highly integrated MAP-X processor performs an extensive array of audio decoding and spatial post-processing, in addition to essential wired I/O signal routing and conditioning, while the CSR8600 platform provides the seamless Bluetooth link and decodes the high-fidelity aptX wireless audio stream.

The MAP-X device used in this high-end sound bar demo provides everything designers need to implement a complete audio decoding and processing system, and includes three powerful 32-bit DSP cores running at 432 MHz, HD audio decoding (DTS, Dolby, etc.), support for an array of audio post-processing functions from CSR and third parties, 64Mb of integrated RAM, a multitude of S/PDIF, I2S, GPIO, UART, analog stereo and other I/Os, eight very high performance DACs and more. The device provides streaming capabilities from Internet services such as vTuner™ or from PCs and personal media servers over a home network via DLNA. The MAP-X family includes seven variants with varying levels of performance and features. All MAP-X variants are software compatible with each other, making it easy for designers to save development time and cost when creating a range of consumer audio products offering a sliding scale of feature sets.

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