Logical advance

logic

ISA is a senior audio chip designer, focusing on the low-end market. As early as ISA generation, there was a famous ALS007 audio control chip. PCI era, move forward.

Logic, an audio processing chip, still focuses on the low-end market. ALS4000 is a well-known chip. ALS4000 has simple functions and average sound quality, but the price is really cheap.

With the intensification of competition, move forward

Logic's share in the low-end market has also been eroded by AC'97 soft card.

Luo Ji did not give up the sound card market, but turned to the codec market. The famous ALC series codec is their masterpiece. Go ahead.

Logic has played an excellent role and greatly promoted the sound quality of AC'97 soft card.

In the ISA era, the name Orry was unknown, but in the PCI era, Orry's name spread rapidly with Monti's S90 sound card, which was widely praised by gamers and made Orry famous.

S90 is the whirlpool of Origen.

AU8820 audio control chip.

Support A3D

1.0, it is this S90 that makes many people accept the concept of 3D sound effects. Although the last fruit was picked by innovation, it was A3D that planted the tree and brought realistic 3D sound simulation.

Then Orry released Vortex-2.

AU8830 audio control chip, supporting A3D.

2.0, Monty released the mx300 sound card based on this chip for field innovation! The series competed for the market, and then Orry and Monti ended their cooperative relationship. Soon Orry was acquired by rivals, and A3D and Orry became history.

Ensoniq 1997, Ensoniq was first developed.

Interconnection standard between computer and its peripheral equipment

ES 1370, one of the audio control chip manufacturers, has been adopted by many manufacturers, and innovation is also one of Ensoniq's customers. ES 1370 supports 32 hardware polyphones, which are expanded to 64 polyphones through the corresponding soft wave table, and supports a 2-8M sound library.

Direct hardware support

Sound, direct

sound

3D and software simulation A3D.

1.0 and EAX became the first choice chips for mid-range PCI sound cards. Because innovation needs a mid-range chip to expand its product line, Ensoniq was acquired by innovation soon.

There are three kinds of PCI audio control chips developed by Ensoniq, namely ES/KOOC-0/370, ES/KOOC-0/37/KOOC-0/373, which are characterized by good sound quality, few functions and excellent signal-to-noise ratio.

But they also have an obvious disadvantage, they do not support multiple audio streams. Fortunately, with the introduction of WDM drivers, these are not disadvantages.

After the acquisition, the innovation also introduced chips such as CT5507, CT25 18 and CT5880, and the famous low-end sound card PCI 128 adopted the CT-5880 chip.

E-muE-mu is a powerful audio control chip designer, mainly engaged in audio chip development and technical research, and was acquired by innovation. The classic and innovative AWE64 series adopts E-mu's Emu8000 chip, and its excellent wave table ability impresses everyone who has heard it. E-mu's audio control chip is mainly oriented to the high-end market, focusing on performance, quality and function, and its development strength is less than that of its rivals, so it is the most innovative technology.

There is a derivative version of Emu8000-emu8008, which is the PCI version of Emu8000. A PCI version of AWE64 has been released, which is EMU8008, but it is very rare in the market.

Fortunately, E-mu developed the cross-era Emu 10k 1 in time, which enabled the innovative company to successfully launch SoundBlaster.

Live! Series.

Emu 10k 1 has many new functions. This is a programmable DSP chip. Even today, a few years later, I won't think this chip is too outdated. In fact, life is based on this chip! Can meet the needs of most games.

In 200 1 year, Emu developed a chip stronger than Emu 10k 1, which is the audio control chip used in Audigy series. This chip inherits all the advantages of Emu 10k 1, improves the shortcomings of MIDI, and improves the computing power by four times, which is enough to meet the needs of all games.

In 2002, Audigy2 was innovated and launched.

ESS In the ISA era, ESS is the most innovative competitor with rich product lines and excellent cost performance. At that time, ESS688/ 1868 were excellent chips, which were favored by many card manufacturers because of their good compatibility and low price, and their market share was very large, making them the absolute first choice in the low-end market.

After entering the PCI era, ESS also actively expanded and launched ESS before and after.

Master-me, ESS

Maestro-II、ESS

Canyon3D and other chips, ESS compatibility has been very good, ESS

Maestro-II is favored by the Imperial Alliance, and the famous S70 sound card is based on this chip. This chip has a simplified version of SOLO-I, which is mainly integrated for motherboard manufacturers and rarely used as an independent sound card chip.

Canyon3D is the strongest chip of ESS, also known as Maestro-2e, and the first chip of ESS that supports multiple channels. The famous Monty MX400 sound card uses this chip and has powerful computing power.

200 1 year, ESS

Canyon3D-2 was released again, but at this time, innovation has monopolized the market, Canyon3D-2 has not gained its due fame and market, and ESS has gradually disappeared in the sound card market. The oldest competitor of this innovation finally can't bear the pressure of quitting the competition, but ESS still exists, and it mainly expands the consumer electronics market at present.

Hua Xun Hua Xun is also an influential manufacturer. Their CMI-8338/8738 chips have deeply influenced the low-end market. CMI series pursues cost performance, integrates codec, reduces cost and saves PCB and design fee or motherboard. Even if the price is very low, CMI series has 24bit/44. 1kHz or 48kHz S/PDIF input.

In the eyes of many people, CMI is a group of chips that are not worth mentioning. Actually, it's not. 8338/8738 has done a good job in the most basic function-input and output, but there are few decent 8338/8738 sound cards on the market, but this does not mean that the sound quality of 8338/8738 must be bad, although their computing power is really weak.

Yamaha Yamaha is a well-known company engaged in transportation and electro-acoustic musical instruments. In the ISA era, Yamaha's 7 19 chip once won an excellent reputation.

In the era of the rise of PCI sound cards, their products were once very popular. The most famous series is YMF724, which has four versions: 724B, 724C, 724E and 724F. Since 724E, the compatibility of YMF chip has been greatly improved. YMF724 series was a mid-range sound card with warm timbre, excellent MIDI ability and outstanding cost performance.

The famous 724 sound card is Zhong Ling Leigong. Although the workmanship is not excellent, many people appreciate the charm of 724.

On the basis of 724, Yamaha added four-channel and digital I/O support and improved 3D sound effects, and launched 744 series. Unfortunately, the 744 didn't blow the 724 whirlwind again.

After that, Yamaha released YMF754 chip, announcing farewell to the competition in the field of civil sound cards.

I believe many friends remember a YMF734. Yamaha didn't have any YMF734 chips at all, but at that time, 734 sound cards were a dime a dozen, all using other chips, such as ALS4000 mentioned earlier.

Remarks, which proves that the reputation of Yamaha family is quite good.

Crystal cirrus

Logic and Crystal are the same company, just two names, and the crystal company mentioned at ordinary times is them.

Among these chip manufacturers, crystal, not Emu, has the strongest technology. Just count how many crystal chips are used in the innovative high-end sound card to know how powerful the crystal is.

However, this company has always had the feeling of fooling around. It seems very casual to make audio control chips, taking a low-cost route. Many friends equate crystal chips with low quality and low price. As early as ISA era, crystal audio controller was widely used to forge 7 19 sound cards. In the PCI era, many so-called 734 sound cards were forged with crystal audio controllers.

Over time, the image of the crystal has been greatly affected. In fact, the chips used to forge 734 are much better than Yamaha's chips, which is very interesting to forge.

The recovery of the crystal image is thanks to Auri. If Orry didn't want to monopolize it, Monty and Walter Jetela would have already done it.

turtle

Beach wouldn't have left Orry. Monty chose ESS and Voyetra.

turtle

Beech chose the crystal, Voitra.

turtle

Beach has launched an amazing turtle.

beach

Santa Claus (= Santa Claus)

Cruz, foreign evaluation even surpassed Monti MX200, and this chip is based on Crystal CS4630. Later, with the addition of Hercules and German tanks, Crystal established the image of a mid-range king. Domestic Shimatani Science and Technology has launched Black Gold 2 series based on CS4630, which overthrew the traditional concept of good quality and low price.

There are many audio control chips released by Crystal, and the most influential one is CS46XX series. Hardware SRC makes the sound quality of the sound card based on this series quite good, easily surpassing the innovative sound card.

The advantages of DVD are beyond the reach of other chip manufacturers.

In addition, crystal is also important for AC' 97.

Codec vendor.

FortemediaFortemedia is the most famous series FM80 1, which is subdivided into FM80 1AS and FM80 1AU. When DVD was popularized in PC, few chips could support 6-channel system, and innovation didn't launch 6-channel sound card in time, which brought Fortemedia an opportunity. It was at this time that it was much cheaper.

FM80 1AU has digital I/O function, which is called DVD audio optimization, plus live broadcast at that time! Still facing the high end, FM80 1AU series has achieved great success.

But the good times are not long, and innovation is on the line! 5. After1,FM80 1AU was gradually eliminated by the market.