Qualcomm at its voice and music developer conference today announced new audio system-on-chip (SoCs) platforms. Qualcomm Smart Audio Platform Combines Premium Audio Solutions, Advanced Far-Field Voice Capture, Wake-Word Detection, Qualcomm AllPlay Multi-Room Audio Technology, and Support for Voice Assistants to Help Innovative Voice Interactions
It also detailed Bluetooth Audio Platform Roadmap that includes New Bluetooth wireless audio SoCs. New WHS9420 and WHS9410 single chip USB audio SoC platforms designed specifically for USB-C connected audio devices and DDFATM Digital Amplifier Technology for high-resolution audio devices including wireless speakers, soundbars, networked audio and headphone amplifiers.
Highlights of CSRA68100 single chip Bluetooth audio flash-programmable platform for premium wireless speakers and headphones
- New generation highly flexible Bluetooth audio flash programmable
- Drives innovation and feature differentiation at premium end
- 4 times more processing power than CSR8675
- Advanced features on single chip platform:
◦ Superior audio quality
◦ Voice control
◦ Far-field echo cancellation
◦ Sensor Processing
◦ Audio Post Processing
Highlights of QCC3XXX entry-level, flash-programmable audio SoC platforms for affordable Bluetooth headsets and speakers
- Supports increased customization
- Designed to deliver rich set of audio features not typically associated with lower tier
- Advanced developer tools
- Flexible environment for developing quality Bluetooth products, even at lower price points
Highlights of WHS9420 and WHS9410 single chip USB audio SoC platforms for USB-C connected audio devices
- USB-C connection becoming more common on mobiles
- USB-C headphones and speakers offer high quality wired audio option
- New platforms combine our expertise from mobile and wireless audio
- WHS9420: integrated ANC supports very high quality audio over the
USB connection with up to 192kHz/24-bit audio support and very high
quality DAC output - WHS9410: entry level solution designed to bring quality audio
performance to lower tier products
Highlights of Qualcomm Smart Audio Platform
- Unique combination of processing power, connectivity options, voice UI
and premium audio technologies - Flexible platform based on APQ8009 or APQ8017 hardware
- Pre-integrates a range of high-performance Wi-Fi and Bluetooth solutions including improvements for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth coexistence.
- Designed to allow customers to select from a of variety dual-band 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi chips with both 1×1 and 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 4.2, and Bluetooth Low Energy.
- Designed to deliver premium audio quality with a comprehensively integrated set of industry-leading audio codecs including high-performance Bluetooth audio using aptX and aptX HD.
- Supports customers in their deployment of new premium DDFA audio amplifiers, as well as low-latency AllPlay networked audio technology for whole-home synchronized audio streaming.
- Developer platform and modules available
- Support for Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) (available later this year)
- Support for the Google Assistant (available later this year)
- Support for Android Things along with Google Cast for Audio (available later this year)
- AllPlay networked audio solution, comprehensively interoperable with existing and future AllPlay ecosystem products
- High-performance Bluetooth audio encode and decode with aptX and aptX HD
- Audio playback from a wide range of industry audio codecs including MP3, AAC, OggVorbis, FLAC, AIFF, WAV, PCM, ALAC
- Qualcomm Hexagon DSP SDK
- Key Bluetooth profiles including HFP/AG, PBAP, PANU and NAP, A2DP, AVRCP
- High-performance Bluetooth/Wi-Fi coexistence for optimal audio performance
The Qualcomm Smart Audio Platform is expected to be available Q3 2017. In Q1 2018 Qualcomm aims to launch a new family of low-power Bluetooth audio SoCs highly optimized to be used in compact, feature rich devices that will reduce power consumption by more than 50% for voice calls and music streaming compared to our existing portfolio.