CSR launches 5th Generation Bluetooth solutions and showcases CSR's BlueMedia vision with enhanced DSP

- CSR plc (LSE: CSR.L) today launched its fifth generation of BlueCore, the Bluetooth hardware and software solution with more than 55% of the market today. CSR also today launched its BlueMedia enhancements using new DSPs embedded inside the ICs to bring both improved audio performance and added radio functionality.

BlueMedia enhanced DSP brings significant improvements to CSR's existing multimedia BlueCore silicon, which was launched 2 years ago. BlueCore5-Multimedia includes a doubling of the processing power of the DSP co-processor to 64MIPS. The on-chip memory in BlueCore5-Multimedia has also been upgraded to 156Kbytes SRAM and improvements to the internal stereo analogue CODECs now provide up to 90dB signal to noise ratio. The BlueCore5-Multimedia IC is aimed at the increasingly sophisticated Bluetooth accessory market including mono and stereo headsets, automotive systems and music players. This chip combines a fifth generation Bluetooth core, and uses the BlueMedia enhancement to embed CSR's latest generation ClearVoiceCapture (CVC) technology for improved on-chip echo cancellation and noise suppression.

In addition the BlueMedia enhancements are sized to run a wider range of digital music compression and decompression CODECs including MP3+, AAC, WMA3, and ATRAC, as well as new additional audio functions including voice recognition, text to speech synthesis and 3D-postitional surround sound.

Brian O'Rourke, Senior Analyst, InStat commented, "With its latest release addressing the multimedia market, CSR remains on the cutting edge of the Bluetooth silicon market."

BlueCore5-ROM features the fifth generation Bluetooth core as a stand- alone IC to give the lowest power consumption, cost and size in the industry, and is targeted for those applications, including the mobile phone, that already include a separate DSP co-processor. In this case CSR can provide the BlueMedia DSP software to run on the separate IC optimised to run in conjunction with CSR ICs.

BlueMedia on-chip DSP enhancements are also used in its BlueCore5 ICs to offer other non-Bluetooth radios for broadcast reception. The first of these will be BlueCore5-FM, with FM radio embedded in the Bluetooth silicon. This IC is targeted at those applications that are looking to reduce the cost, size and power consumption of existing broadcast receivers at the same time as upgrading to include Bluetooth. 

These features of BlueCore5 build on top of the now well-established Bluetooth v2.0+EDR (with faster 3Mbps data transfer rates). CSR remains the only company supplying EDR silicon in volume and has already shipped over 5 million chips.

BlueCore5-ROM will start sampling from Q4, 2005. BlueCore5-Multimedia and BlueCore5-FM will start sampling in early 2006.

Glenn Collinson, Co-founder and Sales Director, CSR commented, "BlueCore5 extends CSR's lead in Bluetooth with the first fifth generation Bluetooth solution with industry leading power figures as well as the first full support for the latest Bluetooth standard" Collinson continued, "However, this generation marks a significant step towards our vision of BlueMedia. By putting more focus on our strong DSP architecture we can integrate more technologies with the Bluetooth radio, our customers can continue to improve their time to market even when the complexity of the modern device is exploding."

More information about CSR can be found on the web site at http://www.csr.com/

More information about Bluetooth technology can be found on the SIG web site
at http://www.bluetooth.com/