Synopsys' DesignWare audio IP achieves first-pass silicon success in 65-nm and 55-nm process technologies

MOUNTAIN VIEW, USA: Synopsys Inc. announced that its DesignWare 96 dB Hi-Fi Audio IP has achieved first-pass silicon success in 65-nanometer (nm) and 55-nm process technologies for multiple foundries.

The DesignWare 96 dB Hi-Fi Audio IP is optimized for high-performance, low power dissipation and small area, making it ideal for consumer electronic system-on-chip (SoC) applications such as portable media players, smart phones, CD/DVD/ Blu-Ray Disc players/recorders, digital TV and digital cameras. By providing a silicon-proven, modular audio IP solution that meets high performance SoC requirements, Synopsys enables designers to optimize their audio subsystem within the SoC and reduce integration risk.

The DesignWare 96 dB Hi-Fi Audio IP portfolio offers a comprehensive feature set, such as line and microphone inputs, headset, loudspeaker and line driver outputs, programmable gain amplifiers and power management blocks. This allows designers to select the specific functionality for their target application, resulting in area and power savings.

Synopsys' audio IP family of audio codecs, including both record channel analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and playback channel digital-to-analog converters (DACs), achieves excellent silicon performance with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in excess of 100 dB for the playback channel and 94 dB for the record channel. In addition, the DesignWare Audio IP delivers audio pop-suppression performance of -80 dBV with flexible start-up/down timing control for a high-quality audio experience.

"There is a growing inclination among chip vendors to integrate high-performance multimedia functionality into their SoC designs to achieve better audio/video and graphics performance, while keeping power consumption at an optimum level," said Ganesh Ramamoorthy, research director at Gartner. "We expect differentiated IP such as general purpose analog and analog mixed-signal IP will continue to grow at a CAGR of over 9 percent over the next five years. IP vendors who are providing feature-rich Hi-Fi audio IP solutions will play a key role in the development of SoCs requiring audio processing."

"For the past 15 years, Synopsys has delivered high-quality audio IP that has been successfully integrated in more than 100 million chips," said John Koeter, VP of marketing for IP and Systems at Synopsys. "We continue to expand our DesignWare Analog IP portfolio with silicon-proven solutions that support the latest process technologies and offer a range of functions that can be quickly embedded into advanced SoCs."

The silicon-proven DesignWare 96 dB Hi-Fi Audio IP in 65-nm and 55-nm processes is available now for multiple foundries. Additional DesignWare Audio IP is also available in processes from 180-nm to 40-nm.