HighBeam Research - Newspaper archives and journal articles
Options
Cancel changes
Follow us:
  • Subscription benefits
  • Log in
  • Sign up for a free, 7-day trial
  • Publications
  • Research topics
  • Topics home
  • People
    • Artists and Entertainers
    • Company executives
    • Historical figures
    • Politicians and Government officials
    • World Leaders
  • Issues and Events
    • Health and Medicine
    • Historical Events
    • Religion and Theology
    • Science and Technology
  • Places
  • Organizations
  • A-Z
    • A-G
    • H-O
    • P-T
    • U-Z
    • 0-9
  • Publications home
  • Journals
    • Academic journals
    • Business journals
    • Education journals
    • Math and Engineering journals
    • Medical journals
    • Science and Technology journals
    • Trade journals
  • Magazines
    • Business magazines
    • Computer magazines
    • Education magazines
    • Industry magazines
    • Lifestyle magazines
    • Medical magazines
  • Newspapers
    • International newspapers and newswires
    • Reports, newsletters, and transcripts
    • U.K. newspapers
    • U.S. newspapers and newswires
  • Reference works and books
    • Almanacs
    • Dictionaries and thesauruses
    • Encyclopedias
    • Non-fiction books
  • Subscription benefits
  • Log in
  • PUBLICATIONS HOME
  • Journals
    • Academic journals
    • Business journals
    • Education journals
    • Math and Engineering journals
    • Medical journals
    • Science and Technology journals
    • Trade journals
  • Magazines
    • Business magazines
    • Computer magazines
    • Education magazines
    • Industry magazines
    • Lifestyle magazines
    • Medical magazines
  • Newspapers
    • International newspapers and newswires
    • Reports, newsletters, and transcripts
    • U.K. newspapers
    • U.S. newspapers and newswires
  • Reference works and books
    • Almanacs
    • Dictionaries and thesauruses
    • Encyclopedias
    • Non-fiction books
Home » Publications » Industry magazines » Engineering magazines » EDN Asia » June 2007 »
  • Save
    This article has been saved!
    You may organize and add notes about this article below.
    This article has been saved!
    View all saved articles
  • Export

    To export this article to Microsoft Word, please log in or subscribe.

    Have an account? Please log in

    Not a subscriber? Sign up today

  • Print
  • Cite

    MLA

    Wilson, Ron. "Power this: testing audio Ics: SoCs for set-top boxes, television monitors, disk players, and mobile media players have or soon will have HD capability. But another aspect of this evolution--one that could prove even more challenging to SoC designers and test engineers--is that, along with HD video comes a significant increase in the quality of the accompanying audio.(Cover story)." EDN Asia. Canon Communications L.L.C. 2007. HighBeam Research. 25 Apr. 2018 <https://www.highbeam.com>.

    Chicago

    Wilson, Ron. "Power this: testing audio Ics: SoCs for set-top boxes, television monitors, disk players, and mobile media players have or soon will have HD capability. But another aspect of this evolution--one that could prove even more challenging to SoC designers and test engineers--is that, along with HD video comes a significant increase in the quality of the accompanying audio.(Cover story)." EDN Asia. 2007. HighBeam Research. (April 25, 2018). https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-169086238.html

    APA

    Wilson, Ron. "Power this: testing audio Ics: SoCs for set-top boxes, television monitors, disk players, and mobile media players have or soon will have HD capability. But another aspect of this evolution--one that could prove even more challenging to SoC designers and test engineers--is that, along with HD video comes a significant increase in the quality of the accompanying audio.(Cover story)." EDN Asia. Canon Communications L.L.C. 2007. Retrieved April 25, 2018 from HighBeam Research: https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-169086238.html

    Please use HighBeam citations as a starting point only. Not all required citation information is available for every article, and citation requirements change over time.

Power this: testing audio Ics: SoCs for set-top boxes, television monitors, disk players, and mobile media players have or soon will have HD capability. But another aspect of this evolution--one that could prove even more challenging to SoC designers and test engineers--is that, along with HD video comes a significant increase in the quality of the accompanying audio.(Cover story)

EDN Asia
EDN Asia

See all results for this publication

Browse back issues of this publication by date

June 1, 2007 | Wilson, Ron | Copyright
COPYRIGHT 2009 Reed Business Information, Inc. (US). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights or concerns about this content should be directed to Customer Service.
  • Permalink

    Create a link to this page

    Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:

    <a href="https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-169086238.html" title="Power this: testing audio Ics: SoCs for set-top boxes, television monitors, disk players, and mobile media players have or soon will have HD capability. But another aspect of this evolution--one that could prove even more challenging to SoC designers and test engineers--is that, along with HD video comes a significant increase in the quality of the accompanying audio.(Cover story) | HighBeam Research">Power this: testing audio Ics: SoCs for set-top boxes, television monitors, disk players, and mobile media players have or soon will have HD capability. But another aspect of this evolution--one that could prove even more challenging to SoC designers and test engineers--is that, along with HD video comes a significant increase in the quality of the accompanying audio.(Cover story)</a>

It is a well-publicized trend that HDTV (high-definition TV) is sweeping through the next generation of SoC (system-on-chip) platforms. SoCs for set-top boxes, television monitors, disk players, and--in the near future-mobile media players will have HD capability. But another aspect of this evolution, audio quality, is slipping beneath the radar.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The problem with high-resolution audio isn't just in the circuit design. In fact, analog-IC designers are producing DACs and amplifiers that are arguably better than anything available during the golden age of discrete-component gear. The problem is in characterization and testing. The quality of high-end audio, as many analog designers will tell you and as audiophiles may insist to the point of religious discourse, is excruciatingly hard to quantify even on the characterization bench and almost impossible to verify in a manufacturing-test environment. SOC designers are now sizing up this new challenge, joining experienced audio-IC designers who have lived with it.

SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

The new test-and-measurement challenge is coming from the convergence of two forces. One, as previously mentioned, is the increasing capacity for digital bit streams to provide quality audio. To be more precise, the increasing quality of the source material is not the problem. One can always convert a good bit stream into a mediocre audio signal. The problem is the growing expectations of consumers. When digital audio means audio from an MP3 bit stream or a similarly lossy source, the underlying issues in the codec usually make it unnecessary to take care with the analog circuitry. Users judged MP3 players against portable cassette players and CD players, which for the most part sounded worse in comparison.

"The quality of outputs for MP3 players has actually been driven by the emergence of high-performance headphones rather than by the source," says Gary Adrig, director of marketing for audio products at National Semiconductor. "As headphones improved, we saw some customers in what had been an undemanding application start to ask for 100dB SNRs [signal-to-noise ratios] and 0.05% THD [total harmonic distortion]."

As content vendors began to move to lower compression ratios--hence, higher bit rates--chip designers had to move to wider datapaths and better DACs to keep the noise floor of the hardware below the inherent noise level of the decoded source. Despite the limitations of MP3, market competition proved that consumers are quite discriminating about sound quality.

With the new HD media, the pace has picked up as audio tracks have jumped right past CD quality of 16 bits at 44.1k samples/ sec to as much as 24-bit, 192k-samples/sec data for DVD Audio. This performance will certainly lead buyers of high-end gear to question the quality of the sound they are hearing. "We are already there in the home-theater market," says Texas Instruments Marketing Manager Kevin Belnap. "Once you reach a minimum level of noise and harmonic distortion, a lot of listener-preference issues, like sound stage and the whole 'vacuum-tube-sound' thing, come into play."

But the critical ear won't stop there. Users of set-top and converter boxes, HD-ready television sets, and even mobile devices are likely to also demand much better audio than they have been hearing. The course of this evolution might be more apparent from one professional-audio developer's experience. …


To read the full text of this article and others like it, subscribe today!



Related articles on HighBeam Research

EDN
Power this: testing audio ICs.

EDN; March 1, 2007

700+ words
by Ron Wilson, Executive Editor SOCs for set-top boxes, television monitors, disk players, and mobile media players have or soon will have HD capability. But another aspect of this evolution--one that could prove even more challenging to SOC designers and test engineers--is that, along with HD…
See all related articles »

Publication Finder

Browse back issues from our extensive library of more than 6,500 trusted publications.

Popular publicationson HighBeam Research

The Christian Science Monitor
Religious magazines
Harper's Magazine
Cultural magazines
Newsweek
National newspapers
The Mirror (London, England)
U.K. newspapers
Chicago Sun-Times
Illinois newspapers
Visit Cengage Brain
  • Company
  • About us
  • Subscription benefits
  • Group subscriptions
  • Careers
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Contact us
  • Help topics
  • FAQ
  • Search tips
  • Using the Research Center
  • Billing questions
  • Rights inquiries
  • Customer Service
  • Cengage Learning Network
  • Questia
  • CengageBrain.com
  • HighBeam Business
  • ed2go
  • MiLadyPro
  •  
HighBeam Research
Follow us:

HighBeam Research is operated by Cengage Learning. © Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.

The HighBeam advertising network includes: womensforum.com GlamFamily