Microsoft Announces New Windows Media Support Among Leading Audio Chip Makers Now Including MCS Logic, MediaTek, NEC, Oki, Sanyo, SigmaTel, Sunplus and Toshiba

REDMOND, Wash., and TOKYO, June 5, 2002 — At Streaming Media Japan 2002 today, Microsoft Corp. announced that leading audio chip makers MCS Logic Inc., MediaTek Inc., NEC Corp., Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd., Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., SigmaTel Inc., Sunplus Technology Company Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. are licensing Microsoft® Windows Media™
Format for use in their audio chip products. These chips, ready-made with Windows Media Audio (WMA), will be used in a wide range of devices, including CD players, car stereos, portable audio players and wireless handsets by a number of manufacturers in the coming year.

Today’s announcement further accelerates the wide-scale adoption of Windows Media by a broad range of chip makers and consumer device manufacturers. More than 120 device types are now supporting Windows Media. Microsoft projects that the worldwide installed base of consumer devices supporting Windows Media will reach 27 million by the end of 2002. These devices range from DVD players and CD players to portable music players, PDAs, gaming devices and mobile handsets.

“Windows Media Audio, which offers high-quality playback, exceptionally small file sizes and built-in security, continues to gain momentum among digital media consumers and content providers,”
said Susan Kevorkian, research analyst at IDC.
“Supporting playback of WMA-encoded music is an important way for hardware manufacturers to continue to offer relevant, flexible consumer electronic devices.”

“These leading chip companies help expand native Windows Media support to more than 75 different chips,”
said Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft.
“This is a great example of how Windows Media has emerged as a key feature in the consumer electronics industry.”

The popularity of Windows Media among consumers and device manufacturers is due to its innovative audio compression, providing consumers with the best-quality audio available in the smallest file size. WMA files offer CD-quality music at 44khz but at only half the file size of equivalent-sounding MP3 files. Not only does this double the music for a consumer, it also means devices supporting WMA can store twice as much music in the same amount of memory as MP3-only devices. And for CD technology the benefits of Windows Media expand dramatically, offering up to 22 hours of CD-quality music storage, or more than 350 music tracks, on a single CD.

Coupled with the improved CD-burning and portable music device capabilities in Windows Media Player for Windows® XP, Windows Media makes it easy for music fans to create their own personal music collections from custom playlists of their favorite songs, artists or music styles and transfer it in moments to a CD or a portable device for playback in the home, on the road or on the go.

The following companies are announcing support for Windows Media today and are either shipping chips today or will be by next year:

  • MCS Logic supports WMA in its MLC3300/MLC3310 chipsets for CD players.

  • MediaTek is supporting WMA in its DVD-Player combo chip MT1369; the chipset is in mass production now.

  • NEC will be supporting WMA in decoder middleware for SPX (NEC’s DSP chip) and the uPD61002 chip for car stereos.

  • Oki will add Windows Media support to chipset model No. ML67Q5200-NLA, available in spring 2003.

  • Sanyo is offering a WMA/MP3 decoder chip, model No. LC82323.

  • SigmaTel supports Windows Media in its STMP3410 chip, which is available now.

  • Sunplus now supports Windows Media in its Digital Audio Decoder SPCA755 series, to be released in the third quarter of 2002.

  • Toshiba will be including WMA support in the TC94A20F, available in September. Other Toshiba chips with WMA support will include models TC94A02F, TC9486F, TC9486AF and TC94A34F.

These new chips also will be able to play back the next generation of Windows Media code-named
“Corona.”
Windows Media
“Corona”
is on track to have a beta version delivered this summer and be released later this year. The support of these companies adds to the already announced support among DVD integrated circuit manufacturers for Windows Media Audio and Video, including the next-generation Windows Media
“Corona”
technologies, from Cirrus Logic Inc., ESS Technology Inc., LSI Logic Corp., STMicroelectronics and Zoran Corp.

About Windows Media

Windows Media is the leading digital media platform, providing unmatched audio and video quality to consumers, content providers, solution providers, software developers and corporations. Windows Media offers the industry’s only integrated digital rights management solution and the most scalable and reliable streaming technology tested by independent labs. Windows Media Technologies includes Windows Media Player for consumers, Windows Media Services for servers, Windows Media Tools for content creation and the Windows Media Software Development Kit for software developers. Windows Media Player, available in 26 languages, is the fastest-growing and now leading media player. More information about Windows Media can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia/ .

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.

Microsoft, Windows Media and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. Journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team for additional assistance.

Related Posts