Product Brief
100W audio amplifier IC claims superior efficiency at high and low outputs
Bill Schweber10/5/2009 7:00 AM EDT
Relative newcomer Audium Semiconductor Ltd claims to have overcome this drawback, with a novel, proprietary design which maintains efficiency across all power levels. Their AS1001 100W mono amplifier, targeted at embedded applications such as wireless speakers, home theaters, and portable speakers, minimizes the difficulties of dealing with the relatively high peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR) characteristic of music applications.
Although the details of the Audium approach are confidential, it does not use pulse width modulation (PWM) but instead uses a low bit rate scheme, along with dynamic adjusting of supply rail, adding rails as needed. The vendor says that for a 1-kHz sine wave with an 8-ohm load, efficiency is as good as it would be for a well-designed Class D unit, even at modest, normal listening levels of 73 dBC sound pressure level (SPL) at one meter, with a speaker sensitivity of 89 dBC/W at one meter; power dissipation is 60 mW when delivering 25 mW into this load.
Input format to this 64-lead QFN IC is via an I2S interface, supporting 32-to-48 kHz rates, at 16 bits per channel. The IC operates from 0.8 to 1.8 rail for the amplifier (compatible with Ni-MH secondary cells as well as basic alkaline primary cells), in addition to a 3.3V source for the logic circuitry. Users can set volume, filter parameters and equalization (12 choices are available), among other factors.—Bill Schweber
Price and availability: The Audium AS1001 is sampling now, and priced at $8 each in 100-piece lots.
For more information: Audium Semiconductor, www.audiumsemi.com.
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Bill Cleaver
10/14/2009 9:14 AM EDT
Mentioned in the article are 100W, 0.8V-1.8V rails and 3.3V for logic. Are there higher power rails or do they expect something like 70A from a 1.8V rail?
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bcarso
10/14/2009 11:04 AM EDT
With Bill on this---pretty clearly there is something very wrong with those few numbers. Their website is less than helpful as well, and a glance at the picture of the board on this page
http://www.audiumsemi.com/products.php
shows some disturbingly small output inductors for any of the various output powers shown in the flanking table.
They are stressing their efficiency at low power levels, which in itself is a laudable goal*. But nowhere is there any mention of audio performance in accordance with the usual metrics, like signal-to-noise ratio, bandwidth, THD, IMD, output impedance, etc. Indeed, the site is reamrkably devoid of technical information, perhaps reflecting pending IP determinations.
*in this regard a competitive technology is Audera's Class HD, a variable-rail with embedded class D approach. Audera's head, John French, is the inventor of the BASH topology, and class HD can be seen as evolving from this.
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asdasdsa45646456
10/23/2009 5:53 PM EDT
If a Class D amp is 80% efficient, does that mean the AS1001 is 1600% efficient? Somehow I think they're exaggerating.
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Zola
10/27/2009 2:06 PM EDT
I'm working for more than 20 years in electronics design. I've ordered hundreeds and hundreeds samples, not a single "normal" firm asked me money for them! This one (Audim) asks money for them! In the site they wrote: "Samples are available now, priced from $8 each in 1000+ quantities" (http://www.audiumsemi.com/news002.php). Imagine, they want to sell their samples in quantities of 1000 at a price of $8. Who is the freak that will order 1000 samples of a product without any datasheet? More than that, it is an UK based firm and they are asking to pay them in dollars, but they do not mention what dollars! Australian? Canadian? Hong Kong? Singapore? Or maybe fraud dollars!
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Zola
10/27/2009 2:20 PM EDT
I'm working for more than 20 years in electronics design. I've ordered hundreeds and hundreeds samples, not a single "normal" firm asked me money for them! This one (Audim) asks money for them! In the site they wrote: "Samples are available now, priced from $8 each in 1000+ quantities" (http://www.audiumsemi.com/news002.php). Imagine, they want to sell their samples in quantities of 1000 at a price of $8. Who is the freak that will order 1000 samples of a product without any datasheet? More than that, it is an UK based firm and they are asking to pay them in dollars, but they do not mention what dollars! Australian? Canadian? Hong Kong? Singapore? Or maybe fraudulent dollars!
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Zola
10/27/2009 3:38 PM EDT
I'm working for more than 20 years in electronics design. I've ordered hundreeds and hundreeds samples, not a single "normal" firm asked me money for them! This one (Audim) asks money for them! In the site they wrote: "Samples are available now, priced from $8 each in 1000+ quantities" (http://www.audiumsemi.com/news002.php). Imagine, they want to sell their samples in quantities of 1000 at a price of $8. Who is the freak that will order 1000 samples of a product without any datasheet? More than that, it is an UK based firm and they are asking to pay them in dollars, but they do not mention what dollars! Australian? Canadian? Hong Kong? Singapore? Or maybe fraudulent dollars!
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Zola
10/27/2009 3:43 PM EDT
I'm working for more than 20 years in electronics design. I've ordered hundreeds and hundreeds samples, not a single "normal" firm asked me money for them! This one (Audim) asks money for them! In the site they wrote: "Samples are available now, priced from $8 each in 1000+ quantities" (http://www.audiumsemi.com/news002.php). Imagine, they want to sell their samples in quantities of 1000 at a price of $8. Who is the freak that will order 1000 samples of a product without any datasheet? More than that, it is an UK based firm and they are asking to pay them in dollars, but they do not mention what dollars! Australian? Canadian? Hong Kong? Singapore? US? Or maybe fraudulent dollars!
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