Silicon Brings New York Auto Show Glitter

The hype around the idea of using your car as an extension of your PC has largely dissipated with the dot.com bubble of the late 1990s. But as the bottom fell out of pricing for embedded processor, DSP, and memory devices that were to drive the Internet revolution, carmakers are taking advantage of cheap components and have quietly begun to offer PC-like technologies. Now, more advanced DSP-controlled audio, improved navigation-controls, and in-car web-surfing are finally beginning to emerge as dealer-installed options, along with side-door airbags and, particularly in the U.S., fancy plate and cup holders to facilitate in-car eating and drinking. The New York Auto Show held here last week offered a glimpse of what to expect during the next couple of years, as well as what not to expect, after major car OEMs divulged that some over-hyped technologies, such as Bluetooth, may have seen their day.

The DSP Audio Connection

Advances in digital signal processor (DSP) technologies that largely control audio functionality will bring ear candy even closer to the forefront of selling factors in the future, observers say. Indeed, high-level audio is now pervading across a large demographic spectrum of buyers. Surround sound and other automatic DSP-controlled features such as adjustable speaker output for road noise are in many high-end cars.

Advanced sound features are beginning to extend to mainstream vehicles as well. General Motors said this year for the first time in 2003 models its high-end audio is available in models other than its Cadillac lines, including GM's GMC Yukon Denali, Chevrolet Trailblazer, and GMC Envoy.

As people become more accustomed to having fuller feature audio in the vehicle, DSP technology will play a crucial role. DSP devices take audio signals and enable them to be controlled and processed to suit whatever a creative engineer has in mind. With traditional direct wiring, the output from the audio device, such as the tuner, is routed directly to a speaker and remains stagnant. The DSP, on the other hand, takes the analog signal, decodes it, and allows for digital manipulation of audio signal down to the 1s and 0s of computer language to adjust to the sound field. You can introduce sound delays for a wider sound stage, which mimics how your brain processes sound, by taking what it hears, and like the brain, processes sound based on what is going on in the environment to help you to localize where the sound is coming from based on delays, reflections, etc. So with a DSP, you can fool the brain by making it think that the sound is coming from outside the vehicle. Or have a good frontal sound stage, so it seems as if the singer were physically on the center of the hood.

The American Behemoth: The 2004 Cadillac Seville will feature new DSP-controlled audio features along with the vehicles 900 plus horse-power engine. Mileage? Don't ask.