TI Delivers New Low-Cost, High-Performance Audio DSP for the Home and Car

TI Delivers New Low-Cost, High-Performance Audio DSP for the Home and Car

June 30, 2006

TI's Flexible Audio Solution is Built to Meet Stringent Car Standards and Efficient Home Theater Systems

    DALLAS, June 30 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Bringing higher
fidelity to car audio while providing cost-effective audio
processing for home systems, Texas Instruments Incorporated
(TI) (NYSE: TXN) announced the TAS3108 audio digital signal
processor (DSP).  The 8-channel TAS3108 audio DSP brings
high-performance audio processing capabilities to enable up
to 7.1-channel processing in digital TVs, home
theater-in-a-box systems, and automotive head units and
external amplifiers.  The TAS3108 DSP is the latest from
TI's broad offering of digital and analog products for
audio applications, including Class-D amplifiers, audio
converters, processors and switch mode power management. 
For more information, please visit
http://www.ti.com/tas3108 .

    The TAS3108 DSP has a variety of audio processing
features to address a wide range of applications, including
the rigorous demands of the automotive market, as well as
the cost effective needs of home theater applications.  The
TAS3108 audio DSP can perform five simultaneous instructions
per clock cycle and operates at 135MHz, providing a maximum
of 675 million instructions per second (MIPS).  When
combined with its 48-bit data path (enabling superior bass
management processing), and single-cycle 76-bit (48x28)
multiply-accumulate, the TAS3108 DSP offers an unparalleled
amount of processing at its price point with 135 million
multiple accumulates per second (135MMACS).  

    Custom Audio Tools Simplify Development

    The TAS3108 DSP comes with a comprehensive set of tools
that is optimized for audio processing, enabling the
efficient implementation of proprietary algorithms and
standard features such as equalization, tone and volume
control.  The tools are composed of two essential parts,
the Graphical Development Environment (GDE) and the
Integrated Development Environment (IDE).  The GDE is a
graphical drag-and-drop environment that allows users to
take pre-optimized components and drop them into place. 
They can then program and control each component in
real-time, as well as publish their own components with
proprietary algorithms.  The IDE is a traditional tool
consisting of an editor and simulator/debugger tools.  The
editor will show the customer context sensitive coloring
and help guide them on what to input, enabling quicker
programming and fewer errors.  The simulator/debugger
provides a PC-based environment, allowing customers to
debug their code by testing it, while watching memory and
setting breakpoints.

    Driving Automotive Innovation

    Built specifically to meet the meticulous high
reliability and functional requirements of the automotive
market, TI's new processor underwent thorough simulation,
exhaustive analysis and stress testing to ensure that the
device can meet the defective parts per million (DPPM)
requirements of automotive manufacturers.  Automotive audio
applications benefiting from this device include audio head
units and external amplifiers.  With support for sample
rates from 32 kHz to 192 kHz across 15 stereo/TDM data
formats, developers can target a broad range of markets
with a single design.  An automotive version of the
solution, TI's TAS3108AI, is AEC Q100 qualified, which is
one of the highest standards of quality for components in
the automotive market. 

    "The TAS3108 processor provides us with the
performance we need to differentiate our product lines with
superior sound quality," says Masahiro Kishigami,
Designing Section Manager at Pioneer.  "With TI, we
can offer customers an exceptional sound system that meets
the numerous requirements of the automotive market for
quality and reliability."

    Bringing Home High Quality Audio 

    The TAS3108 audio DSP has enough processing power to
provide home audio developers with full control of audio
processing, including matrix decoding and a variety of
surround sound schemes.  Leveraging the flexibility of the
TAS3108 DSP and TI's development software, developers can
quickly add custom algorithms, equalization, dynamic range
compression for TVs, home theaters in a box and
mini-component systems.  The availability of extensive
performance headroom enables original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs) to differentiate their products
through enhanced features and exceptional sound quality. 
Comprehensive support from leading innovators in audio
quality, such as SRS and BBE, is expected to be available
in the third quarter of 2006, giving developers confidence
that they will always have timely access to optimized
implementations of the latest standards.

    The TAS3108 DSP complements other TI digital and analog
products that support audio applications, such as Class D
amplifiers, audio converters, processors and switch mode
power management.

    Availability, Packaging and Pricing

    Currently in production, the TAS3108DCP, targeting the
home, is $4.36 each and the TAS3108AIDCP, optimized for the
car, is $4.91 each, both in 10,000 quantities or more. 
Evaluation modules (EVM) and code development tools are
also available. 

    About Texas Instruments

    Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP
and analog technologies to meet our customers' real world
signal processing requirements.  In addition to
Semiconductor, the company includes the Educational &
Productivity Solutions business.  TI is headquartered in
Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales
operations in more than 25 countries.
 
    Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock
Exchange under the symbol TXN.  More information is located
on the World Wide Web at http://www.ti.com .

    Trademarks

    All Trademarks are property of their respective
owners.

    For more information, please contact:

     Stephanie Groswirt	
     Texas Instruments	
     Tel:   [phone]   
     Email: [e-mail]

     Wes Robinson		
     Golin Harris		
     Tel:   [phone]	  
     Email: [e-mail]

SOURCE  Texas Instruments Incorporated