Trying to take bite of the Apple

To cover the bases in audio players, one needs to look beyond home plate. Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod family may be the undisputed king of the music handheld, but other players are out there, able to stay in the hunt by buckling together increasingly accessible processing platforms and good, old-fashioned "system glue." Equally important is the proliferation of less-supply-constrained small-form-factor hard drives, which are able to level the playing field, lower barriers to entry and, potentially, increase competition.

The Zen Micro is Creative Technology Ltd.'s attempt to grab a bite of the Apple with a player pointed, at the time of introduction, against the iPod Mini. Creative-which cuts about a 3 percent slice of the MP3 player pie, according to market research firm NPD-developed the Zen Micro with an eye toward plugging the gap between its ultrasmall flash-based players and larger, 20- to 60-Gbyte family of hard-disk players.

To accomplish the all-important function of file storage, Creative selected a 1-inch, platter-based, 5-Gbyte hard drive from Seagate to store more than 1,000 songs and other media. Seagate and a number of other hard-drive manufacturers have ramped up small-form-factor hard drives in response to a burgeoning market for more-generous storage in a number of mobile devices-including the music player, where competitors gained an early foothold.

Of course, stored files are of little use without power/performance-optimized processors ready to chew on all that data. Unlike market leader Apple, which uses a central processor from PortalPlayer in the competing Mini, Creative chose Texas Instruments' TMS-320DA255 DSP platform for the Zen Micro. The DA255 contains all the digital signal-processing capability needed for MP3, WMA and WAV audio file decode and, while not implemented in the Micro, also supports JPEG image processing.

A 512-kbyte SST 39VF400 flash memory serves as code store for the embedded operating system in the Zen Micro, while a Samsung 16-Mbyte SDRAM (the K4S281632) implements system working memory for the TI processor.

A separate microcontroller with embedded flash from STMicroelectronics (ST7F26421) is used, presumably, to handle user interface, data flow and system-tasking functions. While a microcontroller core would certainly be a technically possible addition to the DA255, the design illustrates the often overriding issue of maintaining flexibility by keeping a certain measure of "disintegration" in system implementation.

USB connection
Decompressed raw digital audio from the TI DA255 is fed via an I2C serial interface to an audio codec from the same manufacturer (the TLV320AIC23), which in turn drives final output with its integrated headphone amplifier.

Transfer of digital tunes into the Zen Micro takes place by way of a USB 2.0 interface, with Creative selecting a Philips ISP1583BS controller to handle both the link to a host PC and direct streaming of data to the internal hard drive by way of an ATA direct-access capability.

The sleek, flat front panel is a Synaptics-based touchpad, implemented as a mix of operational buttons and a linear scroll pad rather than the iPod's iconic scroll wheel. (In an amusing jab at the competition, Creative says in its promotional literature that its design will keep users from "going around in circles.") Rounding out the user interface is a blue electroluminescent backlit monochrome LCD with a 106 x 104-pixel resolution.

FM radio support comes in the form of the Philips TEA5767 single-chip solution, a part common to many of today's radio-enabled MP3 players and cell phones. To keep down noise and stray signals, the FM receiver is tucked away in a connector board, sitting right next to the jack, from which a signal is plucked off the headphone cable, which doubles as a dipole antenna.

Small-scale-but critical-data and power control devices from Fairchild, Linear Technologies and TI are testament to the unending need for significant mortar to bind together the big bricks of system function.

An approximate manufacturing cost of $100-assuming $50 for the hard drive, the most expensive component in the system-means that net profits will likely remain narrow, given the Zen Micro's $199 retail price point. Adding to the burden of generating cash is modest market share, reducing Creative Technology's ability to amortize fixed development costs and diminishing the pricing leverage attainable from volume component procurement.

Of course, another important dynamic to watch is the advent of NAND-based storage for single-digit-gigabyte storage players, as seen in the recently launched iPod Nano. While Apple's introduction of the Nano put an end to the Mini series of small-form-factor hard-drive iPods, it will be interesting to see if Creative might take advantage of a diminishing-but still significant-price/gigabyte advantage over NAND when a few thousand song players is the target.