Oxford Semiconductor FireWire audio controller supports first bus-powered, high fidelity speakers from LaCie

January 9, 2007 - A FireWire audio controller from Oxford Semiconductor is the enabling technology behind the first ever bus-powered speakers from LaCie. Announced today, LaCie’s new FireWire Speakers boast a unique exterior design by Neil Poulton, while using the OXFW970 chip to bring high quality sound to desktops and notebooks via a single FireWire connection. The speakers also feature an audio line input for direct connection of MP3 players.

“With FireWire ports in all MACs and gaining acceptance in more than 50% of Windows laptops, consumer applications that utilize the power of FireWire for audio and video applications are on the rise,.” said Sundar Vanchinathan, Oxford Semiconductor VP of Business Development.

By harnessing FireWire’s characteristically high line power capacity, the LaCie FireWire Speakers produce a minimum 8W output and as a consequence, achieve a deeper, richer sound than possible from limited 2W USB speakers. Being bus powered, the speakers remove the need for separate batteries or AC power adaptors.

Compatible with FireWire, the OXFW970 takes in 24-bit serial audio data, samples it at 96 kHz, and produces digital sound from four I2S outputs. It also provides two audio inputs for instrument and microphone line inputs. In a 100-pin TQFP package, the chip integrates an ARM7 processor, high-speed buffer manager, RAM and flash memory.

By enabling digitized sound to be carried from the PC for distribution to a satellite speaker configuration with a built-in high precision audio DAC, the FireWire audio controller offers immunity from conducted noise, hum and crackle which can be a feature of the analog audio output of some PCs.

Through its FireWire audio controllers, Oxford Semiconductor has led the development of breakout boxes, external sound cards and multi-channel speaker systems, providing laptop users with quality sound for the very first time. Oxford’s 3rd generation audio controller, the OXFW971, with the capability to support 16 inputs and 16 outputs along with SPDIF and MIDI, has been designed into leading suppliers to the music industry and is in production now.

FireWire is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.