PortalPlayer all set to roll out new audio chip

PortalPlayer, a US based next generation entertainment solutions provider with its development center located in Hyderabad is all set to roll out its latest product- an audio streaming chip in the market. "This chip is superior to the earlier ones in terms of processing power and integration. We are planning to roll out the product in the market sometime in the next quarter," said JA Chowdary, MD, PortalPlayer.

In spite of a number of players doing R&D in the same direction the company is certain that there is no competition in this arena. "There are more than 10 companies working on the same lines in chip design and related technologies, but we are not expecting much competition except from Texas Instruments, which is well known and has done considerable amount of work in this arena," he explained.

The company deployed more than 25 software professionals for the development of the chip and has taken about one year to develop it at its Hyderabad center. The latest offering from the company would help the end-customer or device manufacturers to market products with considerable improvement in the quality and performance of devices.

PortalPlayer offers a base platform for next generation entertainment products such as portable digital music devices, general audio systems and streaming audio receivers. From the chip to the Electronic Music Distribution (EMD) website, the company enables a new class of PC peripheral and 'PC-Free' systems.

The company vision is to be the supplier of digital media infrastructure solutions for the consumer marketplace. "We are currently developing and marketing advanced systems for digital audio recording and playback, using MP3 and other popular digital compression technologies, tightly integrated with electronic commerce and digital rights management," he explained.

Other products developed by the company include a system-on-chip solution which, supports real-time encoding and decoding of digital media, a Firmware stack including Real Time Operating System (RTOS) and a PC jukebox application offering a customizable user interface for content management on the PC and attached devices.

(CNS)