Oki Electric Launches World's First 32 Polyphonic Sound Generator Chip for the BRIC Markets
ML2874
Tokyo, Japan, March 2, 2006 -- Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. (TSE: 6703) today announced it has developed a 32 polyphonic(*1) sound generator LSI, the ML2874, for the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) markets. This is the world's first chip equipped with prosodies(*2) to play unique traditional instruments widely known in the rapidly growing BRIC countries. Samples are available today with volume production scheduled in April 2006. This ML2874 was co-developed with Casio Computer Co., Ltd.
"With the increasing number of mobile phone subscribers in the BRIC markets, many mobile phones for these areas are being equipped with sound generator chips for polyphonic ringers. Taking account of this trend, we developed a sound generator chip for the BRIC markets to enable mobile phones to play music utilizing the sounds of the region," said Akira Kamo, President of Silicon Solutions Company at Oki Electric. "Our commitment in providing excellent sound quality enables us to offer a sound generator chip to worldwide mobile phone manufacturers intending to localize their products and differentiate themselves in the BRIC markets."
For example, India in particular, uses traditional instruments heavily and music is reproduced with unique prosodies, generating a variety of music cultures each unique to its region. Thus, a general ringer tone LSI like the "GM)(*3) sound generatorcannot reproduce such music accurately. Following are the newly added functions:
1. Inclusion of a wavetable(*4) for traditional instruments
Oki's chip includes a total of 46 timbres to accurately reproduce traditional instruments. Such instruments include: Vina and Zither from India, Cavaquinho from Brazil, Balalaika from Russia, and Bawu from China.
2. Function to change prosody
In addition to standard prosodies, Oki added a function that can reproduce prosodies unique to each region.
The ML2874 became the sixth product in Oki's sound generator family that is compatible with terminals and control software. Oki also made improvements in its original multimedia content format, a tool to enable content providers to create high quality content. This tool can be downloaded, free of charge, from the following URL: https://www.oki.com/jp/sisc/swingnringercp/
Following are the sample tunes
- Let's Have Some Seafood! (Brazil) [MP3: 700KB]
- Kalinka (Russia) [MP3: 728KB]
- Prakruti (India) [MP3: 689KB]
- Spring Moon (China) [MP3: 1.16MB]
(Available in Windows Media Player & Real Player formats)
Reference
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Glossary
- *1 :Polyphonic
In the musical ring tone of mobile phones, polyphony represents the number of sounds generated simultaneously.
- *2 :Prosody
Prosody is the frequency between the sound and pitch within an octave. In addition to standard equal temperament, various prosodies exist in the world depending on the culture and music style.
- *3 :GM (General Musical Instrument Digital Interface '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.
- *4 :Wavetable
The sound generation method widely used by MIDI 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, and sound generation method.
About Swing'nRinger®
About Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.
Founded in 1881, Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. is Japan's first telecommunications manufacturer, with its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. With the corporate vision, "Oki, Network Solutions for a Global Society," Oki provides top-quality products, technologies and solutions to its customers through its info-telecom system business, semiconductor business and printer business. All three businesses function as a collective force to create exciting new products and technologies that satisfy a spectrum of customer needs in various markets. Visit Oki's global web site at http://www.oki.com/.
- Swing'nRinger is a trademark of Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd
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