Next-Gen WiSA Chipset From Summit Semiconductor to Enable Mass Market System Costs

Summit Semiconductor is developing a next-generation chipset for the WiSA (Wireless Speaker and Audio) standard that’s Wi-Fi-compliant, exceeds performance levels of the current solution and will meet channel requirements and sample rates for object-based audio platforms from Dolby and DTS, Tony Parker, vice president-marketing and product development, told Consumer Electronics Daily in an email. The chipset, due in the market in 2016, will enable a system cost “approaching Bluetooth” for the mass market, Parker said. Summit has been the sole supplier of ICs for WiSA-based products, which have been slow to come to market while Summit has demonstrated the technology at CES for the past four years. To date, only Aperion Audio, Bang & Olufsen and Sharp, with a universal disc player, have brought products to market with the WiSA logo. But that’s about to change with some 36 companies now part of the WiSA Association and LG Innotek bringing its own wireless transmitter and receiver products to market for use by LG Electronics and other CE companies, according to a CES announcement. An association spokeswoman told us the WiSA Association expects to see “a hybrid of wired and wireless systems” to address object-based audio over the next couple of years. At CES, WiSA released to members a compliance test specification for home theater and multiroom/whole house distributed audio. Klipsch, an early member of the WiSA Association, announced at CES its first WiSA-certified system. The 5.1-speaker system, part of the Klipsch Reference Premier line, is due to ship in Q3 (see 1501160040). Estimated suggested retail price of the six-piece setup is $5,000-$6,000, according to Tony Ostrom, vice president-product development, Klipsch Group. Startup Enclave Audio also bowed its premier product at CES, a 5.1-channel WiSA-enabled home theater system certified due in May at $1,199 (see 1501070006).