Bluetooth audio development kit

13 November 2013 Design Automation

The creation of the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has enabled convenient wireless stereo audio for applications such as smartphone home and automotive audio docks, wireless speakers, A/V receivers and all-in-one compact audio systems, among others.

Bluetooth audio support is now a regularly seen requirement for smartphone docking solutions. Consumers are able to use their phone as a music source and as a remote control to select the song of their choice and play it from across the room.

With the challenges in RF design, software development and certifications, Microchip believes developers can benefit from a proven, easy to use, complete development kit that will enable them to start right out of the box. Since market requirements vary, developers also need the flexibility to customise their development platform to suit their target market.

The PIC32 Bluetooth Audio Development Kit, which ships with audio streaming demo code, delivers up to 24-bit, 192 kHz audio and has been tested with over 100 different Bluetooth audio-enabled devices, spanning 18 different manufacturers.

The Bluetooth Hardware module and the Bluetooth A2DP audio software have been Bluetooth.org certified, saving the developer significant certification costs.

The modular design allows developers to swap out the included daughter boards (one for audio and one for Bluetooth) to create their own custom versions with their preferred audio and wireless solution.

The kit also supports USB Host and Device connectivity, Apple device authentication module interface, a 2-inch colour LCD, five general-purpose button switches, five LEDs and a plug-in-module interface for PIC32 microcontroller upgrades. The included PIC32MX450F256 MCU runs at 80 MHz with 256 KB Flash and 64 KB RAM.

Microchip is also releasing the necessary Bluetooth Libraries for the kit that enable multiple audio and data profiles as well as USB digital audio. These include the Bluetooth Serial Port Protocol (SPP); the Bluetooth Audio Suite 1 (A2DP with the standard SBC CODEC support) and Bluetooth Audio Suite 2 (A2DP with SBC + AAC CODEC support).

For more information contact Shane Padayachee, Avnet Kopp, +27 (0)11 319 8600, [email protected], www.avnet.co.za

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