Cambridge, UK - 29 June 2007 - CSR (LSE: CSR) today announced that a range of speech and audio enhancement technologies have been added to CSR's BlueCore5-Multimedia silicon to improve the quality of in-car Bluetooth applications. CSR has selected nFore's software to bring noise and echo cancellation and music enhancements specifically for in-car Bluetooth solutions. nFore's technology comes via CSR's eXtension Partner Programme, an open DSP developers' programme which brings a host of third party software enhancements to the BlueCore5-Multimedia platform.

The offering combines CSR's long history of designing Bluetooth technology for the automotive market (CSR customers include Audi, BMW, Nissan, Saab) with nFore's proven air acoustic technology, demonstrated through customers including Mitsubishi, Peugeot and Volkswagen.
nFore offers adaptive AEC (Acoustic Echo Cancellation) to remove echo quickly at the start of a call, as well as a full-duplex solution to avoid voice clipping during the call. In addition, nFore's two omni-directional microphone solution and active noise cancellation technology further reduces unwanted noise by more than 90%, allowing the user cleaner music or speech.

nFore brings a number of audio enhancements for improved stereo sound including virtual reality sound and virtual stereo sound to bring sound to life. Also included is PowBass, a bass-boost solution for headphones which utilises unique auditory characteristics to reproduce low frequencies.
Due to a high performance 24-bit 64 MIPS on-chip DSP, CSR's BlueCore5-Multimedia platform is the only Bluetooth platform available which can support a variety of third-party audio enhancement algorithms. In addition, BlueCore5-Multimedia provides superior sound quality with a best-in-class signal to noise ratio of -95dB.

BlueCore5-Multimedia also leads the industry for power consumption and radio design. The radio transmits at +6.5dBm and receives at -90dBm which eliminates interference when listening to music or taking a call. When used in stereo headset applications, BlueCore5-Multimedia enables industry-leading battery life of more than 24 hours of music playback.

Anthony Murray, Senior Vice President of CSR's Wireless Audio Strategic Business Unit, CSR commented, "The stringent requirements of the automotive market can appear to be a barrier to entry to new players in Bluetooth. However, nFore's market proven software combined with CSR's automotive qualified silicon provides an easy route for designing quality in-car Bluetooth hands-free systems."

"The flexibility of CSR's BlueCore5-Multimedia silicon means that we are able to bring our speech and audio software to enrich the experience of users in the automotive market," added Jack Chen, Vice President, nFore. "nFore's participation in the eXtension Partner Programme allows CSR's automotive customers a generous set of acoustic technologies."