Cirrus Audio ICs Blanket The Market

Electronic News, July 13, 1998 by Peter Brown

Unlike some of its competitors, Cirrus has actually prospered from its audio business and specifically from its Crystal Logic division which is based in Arizona.

Competitors Exiting Market

With numerous companies exiting the market and others struggling to come up with products that target one particular segment, Cirrus now claims to be able to cover nearly all of the PCI audio requirements in notebook and desktop PCs with these two audio devices, dubbed the CS4622 and CS4624.

Over the past six months the audio market has narrowed to a mere half-dozen companies competing for PC slots. Most of the struggles of audio companies revolve around the move to PCI audio that, according to some observers, has been stunted because of the PC OEMs lack of aggression in driving to this next generation technology.

PC OEMs still primarily utilize the ISA audio bus. However, with Microsoft mandating in its PC 98 and PC 99 specifications that computers must move to a PCI-based audio system, audio chip companies may be the ones reaping the most benefit. Cirrus is banking on this move to PCI audio to be a big money maker for the company which has been struggling for the past year to make a significant profit.

With Microsoft's specifications and a higher quality product, Cirrus Logic is attempting to position itself as one of the leaders in this emerging PCI audio market by offering a broad portfolio of products covering the entire PC spectrum, high end to low end to notebooks.

The success of this broad spectrum is dependent upon the price of the device, beating out the other competitors for design wins and meeting its production schedules. ESS Technology, Creative Labs, Aureal Semiconductor, Yamaha, VLSI Technology are ready to meet those demands.

DSP Soundfusion Based

Both of the devices Cirrus introduced are based on its DSP SoundFusion technology and feature a performance of 300 MIPS for the CS4622 and 255 MIPS for the CS4624. Included in the chips is Dolby digital AC-3 audio, acoustic echo cancellation, SoundBlaster support, a complete PCI audio feature set, and a digital audio interface for the top tier entertainment systems, Cirrus said. The CS4622 and CS4624 are sampling with production slated to begin in August of this year priced at $14 and $11, respectively, in 10,000-unit quantities.

"With each new addition to our Crystal multimedia audio family, we expand our offering across application areas and price/performance points that meet the requirements of an ever changing PC industry," said Art Swift, VP and GM for the PC Products Division at Cirrus.

Cirrus is boasting that by including Dolby digital into the devices it will make life easier for designers to enable DVD on a notebook and desktop PCs. DVD-ROMs require Dolby digital to run the audio portion so by including it in the PC audio devices the compatibility and ability to run DVD titles is easier, Cirrus claims.

The CS4622 and CS4624 both include Microsoft' DirectSound API, AC'97 2.0 support, digital input and output, 64-voice wavetable synthesis, and compliance with various audio standards.