Micronas Introduces Intelligent System Solution for MP3 Hard Disc Player (0208)

Freiburg, Germany - March 7, 2002 - At CeBIT 2002, Micronas unveils the company's first application board for the development of audio players with an interface to IBM's MicrodriveTM. The Micronas ColumbusDRIVE features a SDRAM buffer memory and memory management system that will extend playtime three to four times than that of battery operated audio players retrieving their data from spinning media, and completes Micronas' range of solutions supporting flash-based media such as SD cards and MMC.

"For spinning storage media like hard discs, the price per byte will be significantly lower than for memory cards based on flash memories," said Peter Möller, director application multimedia of Micronas. "Manufacturers of audio players can use such large-scale media as IBM's 1-Gbyte Microdrive without having to pay for this advantage with a considerably lower battery life."

Spinning storage media require more power than flash-based memory cards. In order to reduce the system power consumption, Micronas placed a 8 Mbyte SDRAM buffer memory on the ColumbusDRIVE development board. Within a few seconds, amounts of data suffice for several minutes playtime are transmitted from the IBM Microdrive into the buffer. The hard disc switches itself off once the data transmission is complete and is only reactivated when new data is transmitted into the buffer. As an energy saving function, the hard disc dissipates power only when necessary and remains in standby mode the rest of the time.

The ColumbusDRIVE supports functions for playback and recording of music - both from analog and digital sources. Analog or digital input signals are converted into the MP3 format and saved in the SDRAM buffer. Only when the memory capacity of the SDRAM is exhausted, the mechanic storage medium is activated. Hence, the low power advantage also holds for the recording of music.

The universal interfaces of the new ColumbusDRIVE development board also allow the attachment of other storage media, like CompactFlash cards.

The ColumbusDRIVE extends Micronas' MP3 player design platform by manifold applications. With the universal ZenonTM processor based on the ARM7®TDMI core and the MASF family of audio codecs, Micronas enables system manufacturers to develop competitive players based on a single platform. The range of variations extends from low-cost players used for mere music playback to high-end equipment, which can not only playback but also record from both analog and digital sources. Besides all major audio formats such as MP3, WMA or AAC, the Columbus board family also supports common voice codecs. System manufacturers can now combine all these multifaceted variations with all sorts of flash-memory based and mechanic memories.

Users only need a standard ARM environment for development based on the ColumbusDRIVE application boards. No special tools from Micronas are necessary.

The ColumbusDRIVE application board is available now at a price of below 1.000 US Dollar.