Reusable audio technology for tablets

As the pressure to reduce development costs drives the reuse of hardware and software platforms across multiple form factors (or even multiple applications), top consumer electronics manufacturers can use components that are as flexible and reconfigurable as possible. The benefits have been quite substantial. However, flexibility introduces complexity and the balance between ease of use and reusability is challenging.

Mixed-signal audio components are not the most flexible devices traditionally, and their specific application-mode hardware hinders cross-platform reuse. Now, a new generation of audio hubs brings new levels of flexibility to audio in mobile devices while simplifying system integration. There are also many other enjoyable features that ensure new application features, lower bill of materials (BOM) costs, longer talk times, and improved performance.

Tablets and smartphones - what is the difference?

Tablets provide the latest explanation for the re-use of hardware platforms, and most tablet manufacturers tend to reuse their smartphone platforms as much as possible. However, from an audio point of view, a tablet has several restrictive features that are not ideal when using a traditional architecture and can result in wastage and performance discounts.

Bigger

The larger form factor of the tablet provides space for more speakers and larger speakers, including low parasitic impedance speakers, which provide higher output power at the same speaker driver supply voltage. When optimized for the acoustic specificity of the playback device, advanced compression techniques can further increase the volume (as opposed to compression at the source without considering the playback environment). Many tablets now contain two or three speakers that can play stereo audio, and effective debugging can improve video playback or gaming experience.

However, the extra size and weight of the tablets make them somewhat inconvenient to carry. The result is more biased for indoor use, where browsing the experience on a larger screen is more enjoyable. Wi-Fi networks are everywhere in the home, in the office, and on the commercial street. Many low-cost tablets don't have cellular wireless communication at all, which means their voice communications will be more IP-enabled. However, during a voice call, for many typical smartphone platforms, there are voice pre- and post-processing algorithms in a cellular communication modem, which means that in tablets without cellular mode, these algorithms must It is transferred to a different processing core (usually an application processor) or, in some cases, to additional hardware. This complicates software reuse and can seriously affect development time and cost.

Many audio hubs are now used as a transducer management platform that greatly simplifies integration by allowing for tune-to-run later in development, eliminating the need to change a stable host for the unique acoustic characteristics of each different form factor. software platform. In a slim modem architecture, the audio hub is becoming a natural home for voice pre-processing and post-processing, which can reduce the time-to-market for many mobile applications while maintaining the consistency of audio "features" across different use cases.

The larger display of a tablet magnifies the importance of pattern and touch screen performance to the user. Some of the latest innovations in tactile feedback mechanisms have the potential to make future touchscreen applications more natural and interactive, with the result that multiple transducers are embedded in the device and their control signals are coming The more complex it is, even with streaming technology like audio. The right audio architecture can now bring these new experiences to tablet users without significantly changing the system and without incurring more infrastructure costs.

No earpiece

The tablet always has no handset speakers, and the voice calls that occur are either through speaker mode or through headphones. Currently, most tablets that use mobile phone designs still include a mobile phone codec with a power amplifier that is specifically designed to drive an earpiece through the power of its amplifier design or associated analog signal routing ( For example, assume that the operation of the speakers and headphones are completely independent of each other). In fact, this is a redundant amplifier in most tablets, and they are not easily reworked into more useful features in a tablet with a traditional architecture.

The lack of handset talk capabilities, coupled with high-resolution displays, makes video telephony and speaker performance especially important for tablets. As high-bandwidth Wi-Fi networks become more commonly used, the range of audio frequencies transmitted over a wideband voice call is greater, so now a more colorful and sounding videophone is theoretically It becomes possible. However, during a video call, the extra distance from the mouth to the microphone adds to the remote caller an associated level of ambient noise on the core signal. As a result, the performance bottleneck of the entire call experience shifts from network bandwidth to local signal processing capabilities, particularly transmission path noise cancellation and echo cancellation performance.

cycle

Because the tablet can be held in both portrait and landscape modes, the stereo context of the speaker can change significantly as the orientation of the tablet changes. Tablets contain three or more speakers, and if the left and right channel mappings are all oriented, it delivers improved stereo performance, especially when using stereo expansion algorithms. However, this is limited to when three or more speaker amplifiers are available in the system. A typical smartphone has only one speaker built in, and the audio platform must provide this extension when the impact on software and hardware is minimized, while not affecting the cost of more basic smartphones built on the same platform.

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