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Tensilica (News - Alert), Inc. has become the first processor IP (intellectual property) company to approve and make available MPEG-4 AAC-LC, aacPlus v1, and v2 multichannel decoder implementations from Dolby Laboratories (News - Alert), Inc.

 

Having the ability to provide up to 7.1-channel surround sound for home entertainment devices, these three multichannel decoders are available now for the Tensilica HiFi 2 Audio Engine, a popular audio architecture for system-on-chip (SOC) design.

 

Larry Przywara, Tensilica’s marketing director for mobile/multimedia products said in a statement that their company offered their customers stereo AAC-LC and aacPlus decoders for several years with great success in the handheld and portable device markets, and they’re now seeing strong demand for multi-channel versions in home entertainment multimedia products.

 

Tensilica has further improved the memory requirements of the stereo decoders with reductions of up to 62 percent for data RAM and 25 percent for code size. Przywara pointed out that Dolby’s aacPlus implementation sets the standard for quality and ensures that customers will enjoy an exceptional audio experience.

 

Martin Dietz, vice president, Dolby Laboratories said that multi-channel AAC-LC and aacPlus is now being deployed in the broadcast and consumer segments. He expressed his company’s delighted to be cooperating with Tensilica to hasten this process with certified implementations on their HiFi 2 Audio Engine.

 

Dietz believes this will enable companies to accelerate the design of the next generation audio chips that include this audio standard as well as other system features, reducing cost and power in many applications.

 

Last week, Tensilica announced that its Xtensa configurable processor has been designed into the baseband processor in Samsung (News - Alert) EM’s HD Radio chipset. Based on a design by iBiquity Digital Corporation, the developer and licensor of HD Radio technology and a Tensilica processor reseller, the baseband processor integrates the memory, SDRAM and flash in a system-in-package measuring just 9 x 9 mm.