ONE OF THE LAST areas that Bluetooth, the wireless data standard, still needs to conquer is support for high quality audio.
For example, if you can send a real-time audio feed from a DVD player to surround-sound loudspeakers, that means the speakers can be placed virtually anywhere.
GCT Semiconductor, a fabless chip supplier based in Korea, believes it has the answers. Here at the Bluetooth Congress in Amsterdam it is demonstrating wirefree speakers thanks to its GDM3101 VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) processor which offers an MPEG4 codec for video and voice streaming.
The 3101 is presently at engineering sample level. To date, GCT Bluetooth RF (radio frequency) chips have been adopted by a small number of OEMs in both Korea and Taiwan.
The company claims its RF core technology (for both Bluetooth and 802.11) can be allied to multimedia processors yet the chips still be produced using standard CMOS processes.
IGCT expects the resulting cost savings will provide a competitive advantage for manufacturers of wireless data products or wireless headsets.