Imagination and Packetcraft partner for Bluetooth low energy audio
Imagination Technologies and Packetcraft have announced a partnership where the former’s IMG iEB110 hardware is combined with the latter’s Bluetooth host stack for Bluetooth Low Energy IP using the low complexity communication codec (LC3).
The Bluetooth v5.2 specification supports high quality audio over Bluetooth Low Energy for a range of new use cases, said Imagination.
Imagination’s iEB110 is a complete Bluetooth Low Energy v5.2 solution, including RF, controller software and Bluetooth Low Energy host stack. It supports Bluetooth 5.1 features such as angle of arrival/angle of departure (AoA / AoD) allowing sub one metre location and tracking accuracy, and Bluetooth v5.0 features such as LE long-range operation for extended indoor and outdoor coverage, and LE-2M PHY for higher throughput and reduced power consumption.
Packetcraft’s Bluetooth 5.2 qualified host stack is embedded software for Bluetooth Low Energy. It is designed to be efficient in memory, CPU and power, and for portability to different CPUs, radios, and operating systems. Packetcraft’s host stack supporting LE Audio is available today to its enterprise customers.
The IP is designed for applications such as broadcast audio, high quality multi-stream audio and hearing aid support.
The IP can be integrated into an SoC and the integrated hardware and software is claimed to result in “significant benefits” with reduced development time and time to market.
The LC3 brings superior performance compared to sub-band codec (SBC) which is used in Bluetooth Classic, says Imagination. LC3 delivers better quality audio than SBC at only half the data rate, enabling it to reduce power consumption without compromising on the audio quality, Imagination continues.
Gerry Conlon, executive vice president, Ensigma, Imagination, said: “By combining Imagination’s baseband controller and RF with Packetcraft’s host stack and advanced solution for LE Audio, customers can license and rapidly design . . . . Bluetooth Low Energy 5.2 SoCs”.
John Yi, CEO, Packetcraft, added: “Our Bluetooth version 5.2 qualified host stack has already been licensed to multiple customers developing LE Audio products. This partnership provides customers with a solid foundation for their technical needs and offers an incredibly flexible solution for the next generation of Bluetooth audio.”