Dual-core SoC simplifies design of voice-over-IP telephone terminals and gateways

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26 September 2001 Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI

STMicroelectronics has developed a new digital system-on-chip device for voice- over-Internet protocol (VoIP) telephony. The company says that it enables cost savings by simplifying the design of enterprise IP phones, small gateways, integrated access devices and other emergent products using VoIP technology. Called STLC1502 or 'Stradivarius', the chip integrates a low- power D950 DSP core, an industry-standard ARM7TDMI 32 bit RISC microcontroller core, two 10/100Base-T Ethernet ports and on-chip memories.

Voice-over-IP technology uses the same digital network used for the Internet to send and receive voice signals for telephony. Compared to the traditional approach using analog telephone lines, the VoIP approach allows the integration of voice and data services as well as a more efficient utilisation of line capacity. VoIP phones on a corporate LAN not only enable new features to be added to the telephone network, but also allow integration of data and multimedia services.

When combined with broadband access in small gateways or integrated access devices in homes and small businesses, VoIP telephony allows simultaneous multiple voice calls plus concurrent Internet access from a single analog phone line, thus utilising the same bandwidth for voice and data connections.

The STLC1502 integrates the various functions required to put voice over the Ethernet, resulting in a simple, more compact and low-cost solution for VoIP appliances. To design an IP phone, says ST, the only other parts required will be an analog interface such as ST's STw5093, some optional flash memory for upgradeable software and Fast Ethernet physical layer devices such as the STE100P. Small gateways can also be easily implemented with the Stradivarius chip by adding a multichannel telephony CODEC such as the ST5048 and subscriber line interfaces (SLICs) such as the ST30R80, it says. ST offers a broad selection of CODEC and SLIC chips.

The Stradivarius chip includes the D950 DSP, which implements the vocoder functions using ST-developed software as well as the ARM7 microcontroller core, which performs network functions. The STLC1502 is fully compliant with the ITU H.323 standard for multimedia communications over IP networks.

For further information contact Avnet Kopp, (011) 444 2333, [email protected] or www.avnet.co.za

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Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI

Dual-core SoC simplifies design of voice-over-IP telephone terminals and gateways

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