Elbowing TI in DSPs: new single-chip modem is replacing TI's in 3Com's 56K modem

Electronic News, Dec 8, 1997 by Gale Morrison

ADI's 1998 Promise(s)

As for future products stemming from the work done specifically for 3Com/USR, Mr. French said that ADI targets several applications with the part: PC subscriber modems, remote access server (RAS) modems, asynchronous digital subscriber line (ADSL) modems, digital wireless handsets, PC audio, and industrial and "white goods" motor control (which would be a successor to their ADMC300 motor control IC). "This is the first of many custom designs under way with major OEMs," Mr. French said, a fact which Mr. Fishman reiterated, saying word of these will come in 1Q98.

In the other concurrent ADI wins: with software partner Euphonics, the company will disclose today that it will ship a much-advanced PC audio device, under the name SoundMax 64, for the end of the century Windows desktop market; with software partner Aware, ADI now has a two-year roadmap for further discrete multi-tone (DMT) ADSL chipsets; and Analog is ramping an idled Sunnyvale, Calif., fab to meet the aforementioned power management needs of Intel, which the company expects to also meet the needs of the other Intel motherboard manufacturers.

The SoundMax 64 PC audio hardware and software, engineered with Boulder, Co.-based EuPhonics, contains an Intel DC '97 digital-ready AD1818 SoundComm accelerator. ADI expects to trump audio IC hardware players ESS, Creative Labs, Yamaha, National Semiconductor and Crystal Semiconductor, among others, with this $15-20 part.

With "EuSynth" software from EuPhonics, the DSP and accompanying parts are to support the highest end of PC audio specifications, including 3-D, surround sound, DVD formats requirements, and all the DirectSound bells and whistles that Microsoft is including in Windows 98 and Windows NT 5.0. The AD1818 parts are sampling in 1Q98 and shipping in 2Q98, and the ability to have the same DSP control a 56K modem has been engineered, according to product manager John Croteau. NEC is using the devices of the current-generation of this part in its Pentium II-based PCs for the Japanese market.

Still, perhaps because he was talking to the financial community and they brought up ADI's foibles there, Mr. Fishman downplayed the PC audio IC supply and didn't talk of the SoundMax 64 and SoundComm developments as true redemption. Mr. Fishman acknowledged that ADI missed the market for the last generation of PC audio devices, and he told analysts that ADI is not counting on that market as a bread winner.

On the ADSL front, '910 DSP customers Ericsson and Samsung endorsed the new roadmap with software company Aware. ADI is after Texas Instruments--with its recent Amati purchase offer--in this area as well. Hans-Erhard Reiter, marketing and sales manager of Ericsson's Multi-Service Access division, said at the meeting: "Right now, ADI and Aware are in the most favorable position to deliver ATM and packet switching ADSL on silicon." ADI and Aware are defining PCI-bus-based hardware and software for subscriber side modems, it was said.

ADI has something of a mixed signal, system-on-a-chip in its ADSP-21msp415 GSM standard wireless handset IC. But Mr. Fishman acknowledged that the GSM handset market "has been very soft," though expectations are for a resurgence in 2Q98.