Continuing its leadership in supplying innovative solutions to the automotive industry, CSR plc (LSE: CSR; NASDAQ: CSRE) today announced exciting new products and demonstrated its latest GNSS location, wireless connectivity, multimedia and high-fidelity audio platforms at the Telematics Munich 2012 conference and exhibition. CSR is underscoring its commitment to the automotive infotainment market by debuting the CSR8350™, by introducing several new updates to its broad array of software to support automotive customers, and by showcasing the most complete portfolio of location, connectivity and multimedia system-on-a-chip (SoC) products for the automotive industry. The CSR8350 is an enhanced Bluetooth® and audio solution for in-vehicle infotainment systems that introduces the company’s renowned aptX® audio codec ecosystem into the car environment.
“Telematics Munich is a fitting opportunity for CSR to again demonstrate its commitment to innovation and technological leadership in the automotive market and feature its latest, hottest solutions, including our unique Bluetooth audio, Bluetooth Smart and quad-GNSS location offerings,” said Lars Boeryd, Director of Automotive Marketing at CSR. “The automotive electronics space is highly competitive and has an ever increasing appetite for new approaches, features, technologies and applications that enhance the travel experience for drivers and passengers alike. With our extensive portfolio of automotive solutions, CSR is well positioned to contribute significantly to our customers’ innovative products.”
The new CSR8350 Bluetooth audio solution, announced at Telematics Munich 2012, introduces CSR aptX® audio technology to the automotive market, and is the first to reduce BOM cost and engineering effort by integrating three essential ingredients of a typical auto infotainment head unit: dual-mode Bluetooth 4.0 wireless connectivity, which goes beyond standard hands-free use cases to enable concurrent data communication with sensors, fobs, remotes and other Bluetooth Smart devices; wideband speech (also known as HD Voice) with noise and echo cancellation based on the latest 7th generation CVC™ algorithm, which improves voice recognition and call clarity; and new on-chip A2DP stream decoding, which removes this resource burden from the host CPU.
The quad-GNSS SiRFstarV™ 5ea delivers a number of exciting features to the automotive market, including simultaneous tracking of GPS and other supported constellations, LTE immunity and MEMS aiding to achieve significant location performance improvements, smaller package size, easier integration and lower-cost implementation. CSR SiRFAware™ and SiRFInstantFix™ technologies improve times to first fix and positional accuracy, even with less than optimal antenna placement, and SiRFDRive® dead-reckoning technology, when available, is also supported.
The integrated ARM Cortex™-A9 and ARM NEON™ processors of the new CSR AtlasVI™ infotainment SoC, also on display, enable it to achieve 3x CPU, 3x graphics and 6x multimedia performance improvements over the previous SiRFatlasV™ chip at virtually the same BOM cost, enabling more fluid user interfaces, richer map graphics and concurrent navigation and media playback. Customers can also choose either the optional POWERVR® 3D graphics accelerator or the standard 2D graphics core, depending on their application. The integrated, high-sensitivity, multi-GNSS location engine supports all major global navigation systems as they become operational.
CSR unveiled an updated CSR6000 platform Wi-Fi® driver release that enables OEMs to deploy Wi-Fi Client and Wi-Fi Access Point use cases on designs utilizing the QNX® Neutrino® RTOS. Compatible with the QNX RTOS v6.5.0 and beyond and expected to be available in Q4 2012 from the CSR website, the CSR QNX Wi-Fi driver ensures that customer platforms can be Wi-Fi Alliance® certified, with test results available for WFA, WMM and WPA2™. The CSR QNX Wi-Fi driver has been deployed and tested on popular automotive platforms, including TI OMAP and Freescale iMX™ series processors, the CSR QNX driver is compatible with the QNX OS v6.5.0 and beyond.
CSR introduced an updated Synergy™ Bluetooth v18 software package that now includes the Livio Connect API, which eliminates the need for constant support and one-on-one integration between apps and equipment. The Livio Connect API makes it easy for designers to support today’s most popular Internet radio apps in their next-generation systems, and it can be extended to allow control of traffic, weather and other useful smartphone apps in the vehicle.
CSR released a version of its automotive grade Synergy™ connectivity package for use with in-vehicle infotainment systems based on the increasingly popular Android® operating system. Synergy for Android supports all the latest CSR connectivity chipsets, including the CSR8311™ and CSR6030A10™, running under the Android OS version 2.3 (Gingerbread) and above, and provides all of the required Bluetooth profiles, including HFP v1.6, A2DP, PBAP and MAP, and the latest Wi-Fi connectivity use cases, including Wi-Fi Direct™. Synergy for Android is continuously tested with the latest smartphone and consumer electronic devices to ensure the best possible Bluetooth and Wi-Fi compatibility.
CSR will be demonstrating many other exciting Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart and Wi-Fi wireless connectivity solutions and its latest location solutions in the CSR booth (Stand 40 and 41) at the Telematics Munich 2012 exhibition.
