Audio grade ADCs, PCM4222, AK5572, CS5381, etc...

[1audio]

The AKM chip AK5394A sold quite well as these go for a long time, its been around for over 15 years. I was told its demise was due to the package being discontinued. It seems they would have needed to redo the chip to fit an alternative package. The AKM fire is having a major impact and we can't predict what will happen next there but my guess will be the car products getting priority. Toyota will be applying incredible pressure among others.

[syn08]

Originally Posted by HpW

evals at the Audio Chips - Ismosys too... on backorder

If I could have a dime for each time I've seen "Available on back order" from ESS I would be rich for now. Let's hope they'll change their stupid business model to keep everything under wraps. Anyway, $10 a pop, even the price sounds ridiculous, given the current high end (audio or industrial grades) ADC prices. Perhaps $10 in 1000's quantities .

[syn08]

Originally Posted by 1audio

The AKM chip AK5394A sold quite well as these go for a long time, its been around for over 15 years. I was told its demise was due to the package being discontinued. It seems they would have needed to redo the chip to fit an alternative package. The AKM fire is having a major impact and we can't predict what will happen next there but my guess will be the car products getting priority. Toyota will be applying incredible pressure among others.

Sorry, doesn't really hold water... The AK5394A came in the standard 28pin SOP, which is widely used in the industry (and with other AK products as well, for example the AK4112 audio receiver).

Occam's razor principle suggest that this product did not have a market large enough to justify the cost of keeping it in the catalogue. Same as for so many other demised chips, including discretes.

[1audio]

AKM told me there was something odd about its specific package that had been discontinued, I forgot what. Most of these premium audio chips are barely break even once you factor in the mask. The volume on the chip was still pretty good but it was old and a much larger die and expensive. I gather AP gave them an earful over the EOL as well.

I have some dead EMU boards with a handful of those chips I'll harvest.

In any case time to move on.

[chris719]

Yeah, to be fair, the AK5394A's SSOP package was probably annoying to some. It's a huge package compared to a modern TSSOP/VSSOP or QFN. The power consumption also nears 1W in some modes of operation.

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Analog Devices, TI, Cirrus, etc... are all still offering digital audio chips in 28 SSOP. And AD still has the AD1955 DAC in production, I wonder where the sales are; I would think they are now using the wafer bank for occasional orders, can’t imagine they still run a 5V digital process somewhere in a fab.

[chris719]

It's a larger pitch than the others, though, it's actually a SOP not even SSOP according to the datasheet. Not saying it's a big factor, but it has a 1.27 mm pin pitch, double that of CS5381. The long dimension of the chip is 18.7 mm! The CS5381 is only 7.8 mm. Power consumption is 2x-4x also. Those factors are probably why it didn't get more design wins in pro interfaces. It did have a decent number, but CS5381 was definitely more popular.

On the AD1955, certainly AD has a very good track record of keeping old parts alive. I wonder if AD1955 internally used a lower voltage and had level translators and an LDO built in? There are no signs of that on the block diagrams, though. You're right on the sales - I have no idea who would still be buying that chip. AD1955 saw very little adoption in the pro audio industry as far as I can tell, and it wasn't even that popular in the Hi-Fi market. Benchmark opted for the cheaper AD1853 in the DAC1.

[chris719]

Originally Posted by 1audio

I have some dead EMU boards with a handful of those chips I'll harvest.

In any case time to move on.

I threw away my 1820m a couple years ago after it developed some new issues and I no longer had PCI available anyway. Too bad, because it had 4 AK5394A in it.

[syn08]

I have one of those EMU boards, it is fully functional, one of the best sound cards I've ever seen (Juli@ was at par, while the Lynx was a smidge better) and if memory serves it was $150 only, however it is also useless today because of the lacking drivers for Win x64. They released some beta drivers years ago, but they were an abomination. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll harvest the parts, although I am not about to design anything new around them, just keeping them in my spare parts repository.

[1audio]

Here is your guide to getting the EMU running in the current windows 10. I have it working in two different systems and pretty trouble free. Even works OK with Virtins. I upgraded the opamps on my 1212m card and think I saw an improvement. Its in a box with an RME and Lynx and they all work fine. Probably pointless now but why change it.

E-MU 1616m, 1212m, 1820m, 0404 Audio Interface - Complete Windows 10 (1903 & Above) Installation Guide - KVR Audio Forum