Avnera Corporation has announced a new semiconductor chip technology for wireless speakers, microphones, headphones and headsets. The new technology delivers uncompressed CD-quality sound and solves the interference problems that have plagued wireless audio for decades.

The company has introduced a new transmission technology and six layers of interference protection, all on a single piece of silicon that’s plug-and-play easy to use at a 30 percent lower total system cost.

The company’s new products are the AudioMagic chip, which enables uncompressed CD-quality sound for music applications, and the VoiceMagic chip, which offers wideband voice (16KHz sampling rate) transmission, fixed end-to-end voice latency to support echo cancellation and a small and cost-efficient form factor.

Avnera employs audio specific forward error correction to let the receiver repair lost data due to bursts of interference. It also uses psycho-acoustic techniques and time dispersion to spread out errors in time. The small spectrum footprint in the 2.4 GHz spectrum makes the system more resilient to interference. Avnera’s dynamic frequency selection monitors the entire 2.4 GHz spectrum for interference and seamlessly switches channels if required while maintaining a perfect audio link.

Another technology used by the company is the two separate antenna systems where one can be chosen by the system for sending/receiving the best signal, switching instantaneously. So, those who use products by Avnera can get superior performance in indoor and in-motion (e.g. headphone and headset) applications. As Avnera integrates all of the different chips normally used in a wireless audio device onto a single chip, the cost is 30% less than the normal costs from the competitors.

The plug and play AvneraAudio-based products need no software installation and no profiles. Also, Avnera-enabled products have 50 percent more range than the normal products.

Manpreet Khaira, CEO Avnera Corp, said in a press release, “Every consumer wants to be free from wires, but there’s never been a low-cost, high-quality, easy-to-use wireless audio solution for things like speakers, headphones and headsets. We’ve taken an entirely different technical approach and built this system from the ground up to deliver CD-quality sound without interference, to operate as a plug-and-play unit, and to be affordable. Avnera has developed the technology that will take wireless audio to the mass market.”

The new products introduced by the company are Acoustic Research Wireless Headphones (AWD210), Polycom (News - Alert) CX400 Cordless Phone, RocketFish Wireless Rear Speaker Kit (RF-WHTIB).

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Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.