EBN meldt dat S3, Texas Instruments, Cirrus Logic en PortalPlayer deze week tijdens het Embedded Processor Forum een nieuwe generatie MP3 codecs aan zullen kondigen. Vooral nieuwkomer PortalPlayer blijkt over interessante plannen te beschikken. Hun Tango chippie codeert en decodeert MP3'tjes en eet daarnaast ook Liquid Audio en Advanced Audio Codec formaten. Tango werkt niet alleen met Flash geheugens, maar begrijpt ook andere geheugen interfaces zoals SDRAM, Sony's Memory Stick, Multimedia Card, SRAM en de IDE interface voor koppeling aan CD-ROM drives en andere opslagmedia:
The Tango chip can encode and decode samples from 2 to 96 KHz at rates from 2 to 256 Kbytes/s. While the Cirrus Maverick typically consumes 87 mW when decoding 44.1-KHz, 128-Kbit/s samples, the Tango requires 130 mW on average for audio-file playback, which jumps six to eight times when encoding, according to PortalPlayer.
It also has the ability to interface to just about anything, which PortalPlayer claims is a significant advantage over competitors like Cirrus' Maverick, which connects only to flash memory. The Tango contains native interfaces to up to 256 Mbytes of SDRAM (512 Kbytes are typically needed for encoding) flash memory, CompactFlash memory, Sony's Memory Stick, the Secure Digital or SD Card, MultiMedia Card, SmartMediaCard, and generic SRAM, together with a generic IDE interface to CD-ROM drives or other storage devices.
A Universal Serial Bus version 1.1 connection has been integrated, along with 16 general-purpose I/Os. Like the Maverick, the Tango includes a direct connection to an LCD controller.