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NORWOOD, MASS. - With its rollout of the SoundMax 64 architecture earlier this month, Analog Devices Inc. joined the front ranks of silicon vendors offering a new class of merged PC audio/modem controllers for the PCI bus. With SoundMax 64, modem and audio can move from the aging ISA bus to PCI, thus allowing a PC to use a single PCI controller and PCI bus load to handle those features.
SoundMax 64-the AD1818A controller, a companion AC '97 Rev. 2.0 codec, plus bundled software from Euphonics Inc.-is the latest release that hopes to set the tone for the more integrated, scalable audio and communications that will be required for PCs running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 98. ADI has tailored the SoundMax 64 architecture for Windows 98 PC audio applications.
A suite of software algorithms developed by Euphonics (Boulder, Colo.) will run on ADI's DSPbased PCI controller and provide DVD/Dolby digital playback, Windows 3-D gaming and downloadable wavetable music. SoundBlaster legacy emulation will be offered as part of Windows 98. The same PCI controller will serve as the data pump in modem applications to support 56-kbit/second Internet access and telephony.
The AD1818A has an embedded programmable DSP core with 723-Mops performance and support...