NEC intros Windows Media Player and iTunes compatible music chipset

NEC Electronic announced the start of sample shipments of its newly developed music LSI AP131 for mobile phones. The company plans to keep the output of one million chipsets per month in 2007. The new AP131 LSI accommodates music playing CPU and DSP on its board and adds support for WMV (ASF) and MP (MP4, M4A, 3GP, 3G2). The previous version of this product the μPD99910 had only support for SD-Audio (MP3, AAC) format. NEC achieved a 15% power efficiency in the AP131 when compared with the similar offerings on the market and claims the non-stop playback time has increased to 60 hours from 50 hours on previous products. The AP131 seamlessly integrates with the handset baseband LSI without the need to make changes to baseband LSI. The AP131 product portfolio includes three processors based on their functionality: μPD99911, μPD99912, and μPD99913. NEC is asking 1,000 yen for a sample.

Source: NEC

Miniaturization by Murata: the world's smallest one-seg module

Murata recently announced the SUMUDDJ-LS101, a terrestrial digital TV receiver for mobile phones. What is so special about it? Apparently, Murata managed to cut the size of the tuner by half compared to the previous iterations. The SUMUDDJ-LS101 ISDB-T one-seg module is now proudly measured only at 8.7mm X 9.6mm X 1.5mm. The miniaturization of the tuner should save the valuable space on handset - good news for Japanese mobile phone makers who usually struggle to find free space for more and more features without increasing the size of the device. Thanks to the improvements in design, Murata was also able to ensure the high-quality reception along all the TV channels. The company doesn't exclude the scenario in which the module can be used as a removable SD card-type tuner. Murata's initial output capacity is projected at 500,000 modules per month.

Source: Murata