Oki Semiconductor Introduces New ARM9-Powered Microcontroller for Hard Drive-based Audio Appliances

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Santa Clara, Calif., October 19, 2004 — Oki Semiconductor, a leading technology partner for the new era of digital communications and convergence, today announced the ML69Q6500 (6500) Series of Advantage Microcontrollers™, an application specific standard product designed for hard drive-based audio player and recording applications. Based on the ARM946E™ 32-bit RISC core, the 6500 integrates high-speed USB2.0, a rich feature set for digital audio applications, and an optional Flash controller interface.

The 6500 Series features the industry standard ARM946E™ core, as well as high-speed USB 2.0 and Ultra-DMA66 ATA interfaces, and a 16-bit audio Codec. Additional features include 128 KB of internal SRAM, 8KB of D and I Caches, and an interface that will allow for the connection of external FLASH, SRAM, and SDRAM. The ML69Q6500 also features 512KB of built-in FLASH memory.

Targeted at the portable hard disk-based MP3 device market, available middleware includes MP3 encode/decode, WMA™ decode, equalizer and tempo control functions, as well as SRS WOW surround sound libraries. Also available are the USB mass-storage drivers, and a FAT16/32 file system.

"Oki's 6500 Advantage Microcontroller delivers a comprehensive solution for next-generation, high-performance MP3 devices in an industry-standard format that is easy to integrate." said David Pelavin, director of marketing, Oki Semiconductor. "It offers designers an excellent upgrade path from previous proprietary and ARM-based solutions."

Key features of the 6500 microcontroller include:

"As hardware applications decrease in size and cost while increasing in performance, it is imperative to stay ahead of the curve by building more functionality into the 32-bit microcontrollers," said Ken Sheets, applications engineering manager, Oki Semiconductor. "Oki's new family of high-performance, low-powered ARM9 core-based microcontrollers have the right combination of features, performance and cost to meet the growing requirements of future generation portable audio products."

About Oki Semiconductor

Building on Oki's century-long commitment to communications technologies and markets, Oki Semiconductor designs and markets a broad line of advanced integrated circuits for telecommunications, network, automotive, computer and consumer products. Oki's product lines include telecommunications, RF, laser, networking, speech synthesis, ASIC, microcontroller and memory devices, offered in a variety of creative packages. Founded in 1977 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Oki Semiconductor is a division of Oki America Inc., which is a subsidiary of Oki Electric Industry Co, Ltd. Oki has ISO-9000-certified manufacturing facilities in Japan and Thailand. Information on Oki Semiconductor and its products is available at www.okisemi.com/us.

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