Oki Electric Develops 32 polyphonic and 16 polyphonic Sound Generator Chips for the Chinese Market
- First in Japan to Mount 13 Types of Chinese Traditional Instruments onto a Chip -

"To develop these new chips, we established a project team in Shanghai to conduct marketing and technical support dedicated to the Chinese market. This enabled Oki to respond quickly and in detail to the needs from local manufacturers as well as succeeded in creating a product that is committed to a sound that suits the Chinese market," said Hiro Matsubara, General Manager of the Speech LSI Business Unit at Oki Electric. "We will continue to develop high value added system LSIs for the personal and mobile market by committing to e-sound, small size and low power consumption and converging semiconductor technologies with system technologies."

The GSM market holds 60 percent of the worldwide mobile market, in which China is the largest. Because user needs vary and demand for new models is increased, handset manufacturers make efforts to differentiate themselves by enhancing functions and expanding their product line-up. Oki's new IC includes 13 types of Chinese traditional instruments such as Erhu, Pipa, and the Chinese Dulcimer as a differentiating function, a first for a Japanese company. To respond to the Chinese market requirements for louder ring tone volume, Oki also optimized the wavetable^*2 and achieved twice the volume sound (+6dB) than that of conventional phones from a small speaker. In addition, Oki was able to include in the chip a speaker amplifier that can drive an 8Ω speaker for ringer tones.

Mobile phone manufactures who are expanding their product lineup need to develop various products in a short period of time. Conventionally, pin arrangement and control software differed depending on the LSI and it was necessary to redesign the circuit board when using a new LSI, which caused a burden for product development. However, pin arrangement and control software are completely compatible between Oki's LSIs, an industry first for ringer tone chips. This enables manufacturers to significantly reduce the 32 polyphonic and 16 polyphonic product lineup development times. Oki offers both the super small W-CSP^*3 packaging, and the widely used QFN packaging, which fits various design environments. The company also plans to expand its lineup by providing a 64 polyphonic ring tone LSI and high sound quality product for high-end handsets compatible with the ML2871 and ML2873.

Sales for Oki's sound generator LSI, focused on the competitive GSM mobile phone market business, has increased from 3 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 2003 to 10 billion yen in the end of the fiscal year ending March 2004. By providing products focusing on customers and expanding its business further, Oki plans to achieve sales of 15 billion yen by the fiscal year ending March 2006.

[Main Features]

• Implements PCM sound generator^*4 technology for natural reproduction of sounds from musical instruments such as pianos and drums
• ML2871 32 polyphonic / ML2873 16 polyphonic
• Provides embedded software to expand ML2871 to 40 sounds from the end of June 2004
• Includes a speaker amplifier that can output 550mW when driven at 3.6V, and using an 8Ω speaker
• Complies with GM^*5 sound set (for GM System Level 1, excluding PAN function)
• Provides a total of 188 tones including 128 timbres and 47 percussion sounds, as specified by GM, and 13 Chinese traditional instruments.
• Reproduces sound effects and speech, using the embedded PCM^*6 and 2-bit/4-bit OkiADPCM^*7 synthesizers
• Supports SMF^*8, Faith, Inc.'s original music format, as well as Oki's original music format
• Embedded LED driver with brightness control
• Supports 1.8V low-voltage CPU interface

[Specification and Sales Plan]

[Sound Sample]

• The nutcracker - Valse des Fleurs - [MP3 407KB]
• Shotgun hero (Oki Original) [MP3 480KB]
• Rhapsody in Blue [MP3 398KB]

[Glossary]

*1 Polyphonic

In the musical ring tone of mobile phones, polyphony represents the number of sounds generated simultaneously.

*2 Wavetable

The sound generation method widely used by MIDI^*9 sound and electronic musical instruments. Sound data sampled from real sound is stored as a ROM file, and replayed by digital/analog conversion. Sound quality depends on the ROM capacity, sound data creation method, sampling frequency^*10, and sound generation method.

*3 W-CSP (Wafer level Chip Size Package)

Unlike the conventional CSP, the technology allows shrinking the footprint of LSI packages to the size of the chip itself.

*4 PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) sound generator

Sound generation method created by sampling the analog wave or signal of sounds. Compared to the method of synthesizing sound from sine curves or rectangular curves, the PCM method excels in expressing natural and deep sound. Also known as a wavetable sound generator.

*5 GM (General MIDI)

A widely accepted industry standard that enables playback of the same musical composition in the same way, regardless of the MIDI-compliant device it is played with. Complying with GM allows access to a large amount of GM-supported contents, since most of the currently available electrical musical instruments and Karaoke systems support GM.

*6 PCM (Pulse Code Modulation)

The most common method to digitize sound signals. This is done by sampling the analog signal with a constant sampling rate or frequency, and then expressing the sampled values as digital data.

*7 ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation)

Voice compression technology that uses the differential value between consecutive pieces of sampling data. OkiADPCM is a proprietary method developed by Oki.

*8 SMF (Standard MIDI File)

The Standard MIDI File was developed to allow musicians and audio file developers to transfer their sequenced MIDI data from one software application to another. Many music composition software and music players use the SMF format, which is suitable for exchanging data between different editors, and for disclosing data to an unspecified number of people. Almost all music data made with GM supports the SMF format.

*9 MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)

MIDI is a protocol designed for communicating music data between MIDI-supporting devices, such as electronic synthesizers. Rather than representing musical sounds directly, it transmits information about how music is produced. The command set includes note-on, note-off, key velocity, pitch bend and other methods of controlling a synthesizer.

*10 Sampling frequency

The number of sampling times in one second when converting analog signal to digital signal. Also called sampling rate.

About Swing'nRinger
Swing'nRinger is the name of Oki's sound generator LSI series, reproducing music with a natural rhythm that makes people want to dance.

About Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.
Founded more than a century ago in 1881, Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. is Japan's first telecommunications manufacturer, with its headquarter in Tokyo, Japan. With the corporate vision, "Oki, Network Solutions for a Global Society," Oki Electric provides top-quality products, technologies and solutions to its customers through its telecommunications systems, information systems and electronic devices segments. All three segments are integrated into one effective organization that functions as a collective force to create exciting new products and technologies, including information and telecom converged solutions. Through its business activities, Oki Electric satisfies a spectrum of customer needs in various markets.

Notes:

• Swing'nRinger is a trademark of Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.
• Names of companies and products are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies.