AustriaMicrosystems

AS3514

Austriamicrosystems is the makers of the AS3514 DAC/codec (among other things), which is used on the Sansa e200 as part of the PP5024 chip and as an external chip in the Sansa C200.

The Telephone Call from 18. Jan 2007

ChristianGmeiner had a phone call with AustriaMicrosystems and talked about Rockbox, how it is organised and also about the AS3514 to improve the SansaE200Port. They are very interested to help us with our work and for them it is okay that we release our work based on their informations under the GPL.

Hope some of you like to travel, because a handful of Rockbox developers are invited to visit their company - hope me too. After the tour we can talk directly with the developers/programmers of the company to get all needed informations and support (Rockbox hacking session in Austria).

Maybe you think that you are dreaming... but it is reality They also want Rockbox ported to a player they have - it has a single-chip solution with an arm9 core. They will give us some players and support. So... the company will give us all we need, if we help them to port Rockbox the their single-chip solution - I think that it is this chip (AS3525) if I remember the spoken words correctly.

I have told my contact person that I will inform you about this and that I will call him back in a few days.

So guys.. what do you think... correct.. Austrian citizen and companies are the best *g*

Next Steps

• Are we willing to port Rockbox to their device?

How much docs for the player will AMS/others provide? How much hardware will they donate? HW-debugging tools?

• Who want to do it?
  • RenePeinthor want to help to finish the already started work on the SansaE200Port with help of AMS docs and i could also imagine to work on the new port of the AMS chip.
  • ChristianGmeiner wants the same as RenePeinthor
  • DanielAnkers would be interested, after the audio driver for the AS3514 has been written and provided that appropriate documentation for all parts will be available.
  • BarryWardell wants the same as DanielAnkers.

It probably depends a lot on the outcome from the above.

The Telephone Call from 24. Jan 2007

ChristianGmeiner had the second telephone call with the company. And here are the results:

• We will get about 3-4 (maybe some more) "special" devices of their player - the developer boards have the size of DIN A4 and so hw-debugging should be no problem.
• When we will visit the company, we will be treated like a foreign corporation. This means that we will get something like an introduction, tips and tricks for their product. Finally, they give us a 400 page fat folder with programming informations.
• Last but not least, they will send me the datasheet for the AS3514 - I must check if I am allowed to share the datasheet by providing it for download.

The visit

We need to find a date for our meeting. AustriaMicrosystems told me that it would be fine, if we have the meeting in February and that the meeting can took 1-2 days. I have told my contact person that I will recontact him in a week.

Their HQ is in Graz, some 200km southwest of Vienna (Wien), Austria.

The visit was made on 9th of March and RenePeinthor and I (ChristianGmeiner) went to them...

Documents sharing

AustriaMicrosystems gave us access to the datasheets for: AS3514, AS3525, AS3531, and AS3534. Kudos to them!

They are especially nice for trusting us and not asking to sign Non Disclosure Agreements. Great way to collaborate!