Santa Clara, California-based Zoran Corp has a new family of audio processors. The ZR38500 is designed for six-channel home video applications that employ Dolby’s Surround Pro Logic and new Dolby Surround AC-3 formats. The ZR38521 supports Dolby AC-3 and MPEG-1 audio for high definition television, digital cable and direct broadcast satellite television. In addition, Zoran has released the ZR38001, its latest high performance programmable signal processor. These new devices were developed as part of Zoran’s technology alliance with Dolby Laboratories Inc, which commenced in 1991. Zoran’s ZR38500 single-chip processor can decode both Dolby Pro Logic and AC-3. It performs Pro Logic audio decoding entirely in the digital domain. Zoran has also announced two specialised devices targeted at consumer applications requiring lower cost, two-channel AC-3 audio output. The programmable ZR38001 signal processor uses 20-bit data precision and 32-bit program words operating at 33m instructions per second. The ZR38001’s on-chip resources include 4Kb of Data RAM, 1Kb Program RAM, 12Kb Program ROM and six serial ports. Zoran provides a development system for the ZR38500 and ZR38001. ZR38500 is $39 in quantities of 1,000; for the ZR38001, $42 in quantities of 1,000. The ZR38500, ZR38521, ZR38501 and ZR38001 are sampling now. Production quantities will be available in the next quarter. The ZR38001 Software Tools and Development Board are out now.
