CSR addresses internet radio

According to product marketing manager Ronen Kenig, the company believes there is huge potential for internet radio. “There’s increasing broadband penetration, more wireless access points and thousands of quality internet radio stations.” A lead customer is in place for the design and is expected to launch a product in the UK in time for the Christmas market. Kenig added that CSR was trying to move internet radio from a pc base, allowing it to be streamed to any room in a house where there’s WiFi coverage. The move builds on a concept introduced by Cambridge Consultants at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. The design is based around two CSR chips; the UniFi-1 WiFi device and the Multimedia Application Processor (MAP), which integrates a risc processor, a dsp and a stereo codec. Also included is 32Mbyte of flash and 4Mbyte of sram. Kenig said the board currently measures 5 x 5cm. “But it could be smaller,” he noted, “and it could be embedded into MP3 players, HiFi systems and anything with speakers.” Low power consumption was one of the prime design criteria and CSR claims the device has an operating life of 25hours from a 1500mAh battery. The initial design supports WMA, MP3 and RealAudio files, but the product road map sees wider support in a device to be unveiled next year. Interestingly, CSR has designed field upgradability into the design. Essentially, it enquires every so often whether there is a software upgrade available. If so, it’s downloaded to flash and boots at the next start up.