Audinate Announces Dante Reference Design for NXP i.MX 8M Mini ARM-based Applications Processor

Audinate allows ARM-driven audio product manufacturers based on NXP i.MX 8M Mini applications processor can enable Dante audio-over-IP as on-chip software.

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Audinate and NXP Semiconductors have introduced a reference design kit for the NXP i.MX 8M Mini QuadLite SoC – providing Dante audio-over-IP to OEMs as on-chip software.

“Powerful, compact multi-core applications processors such as the i.MX 8M Mini QuadLite are capable of delivering Dante connectivity across entire families of products with lower costs and far greater versatility,” according to the Audinate announcement.

“Audinate now provides a cost-effective and space-efficient means to deliver Dante AV-over-IP technology in these modern software-driven devices,” according to the company announcement.

“With minimal additional hardware and low marginal costs, Dante Embedded Platform fits where other hardware solutions won’t, giving customers immediate access to thousands of available Dante-enabled products from hundreds of OEMs in countless installations,” the announcement says.

The i.MX 8M Mini QuadLite processor inside the Dante Reference Design Kit offers four Cortex-A53 cores, one Cortex-M4 core with flexible memory options and a variety of high-speed connectivity interfaces, ideal for AV-over-IP applications.

“Audinate sees a shared opportunity as the AV industry migrates to products running on standard computing architectures,” says Joshua Rush, senior VP of marketing at Audinate. “The NXP i.MX 8M applications processor provides a powerful and flexible platform that’s widely used in AV, and the addition of the validated support for Dante-as-software is truly a win-win for developers and end customers alike.”

Inside the Dante Reference Design Kit

“NXP is pleased to work with Audinate, bringing Dante software to the i.MX 8M Mini applications processor,” says Amanda McGregor, senior product manager at NXP. “This approach gives product developers who use the i.MX 8M Mini the opportunity to add Dante to their products.”

The Dante Reference Design Kit for NXP i.MX 8M Mini QuadLite processor is expected to be available in Q4 2019.

Part of what made Dante audio networking successful, Audinate senior product marketing manager Brad Price says in a Commercial Integrator video, is that it’s a complete system.

“There are a lot of possibilities for using bits and pieces of standards to stitch together methods of communication and so forth,” he says. A truly successful solution that can “take a hold of public imagination,” he adds, “are well designed to be a complete system that everybody can understand, that has all the kinds worked out.”

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