Microsoft Corp, ARM Holdings Inc and Cirrus Logic have developed a chip that incorporates Windows audio algorithms, a move that sees Microsoft stepping up its efforts to have the new breed of portable digital players using Microsoft audio software, not the MP3 format.
Microsoft says that the Cirrus Maverick chip – which is based on ARM cores – will enable portable audio players to offer CD- quality audio at half the file size of existing formats. Microsoft paid Cambridge, UK-based chip house ARM to optimize Windows Media technologies for the ARM cores – which are licensed by Cirrus. John Cornish, European marketing manager for ARM, said that through a smart selection of instructions and some programming tricks ARM had improved the performance of Windows audio algorithms on the Cirrus chip four-fold.
Cirrus expects that the first portable devices using Maverick chips will be in shops for the all important holiday season. However, whether Microsoft can break MP3’s stranglehold on the portable digital audio market now that companies like Sony Corp are planning their own MP3 players is a moot point.
Certainly, ARM will sell to every side in the format war. The company has already introduced MP3 audio decoding firmware, which can be used with its several of its microprocessor cores. And Cornish agreed that if another of its licensees – say, Samsung Group – wanted ARM to optimize a core deign for its MP3 players, ARM would do so.
