Fraunhofer IIS to Offer Complete AAC Software Suite for Via Licensing’s New Patent-Licensing Program

The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, co-inventor and primary supplier of Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) technologies, today announced that its complete suite of advanced AAC software solutions is available to support the new AAC patent licensing program administered by Via Licensing Corporation. At Fraunhofer IIS, manufacturers gain access to optimized implementations of all technologies included in this new patent licensing program: AAC-LC, HE-AAC v1 and v2, AAC-LD and AAC-ELD. In addition, Fraunhofer offers an extended suite of conformance bitstreams, testing tools and a logo program, that enables its customers to make complete, interoperable products based on Fraunhofer’s high-quality standards.

Fraunhofer’s advanced software implementations are key components of the company’s extensive range of products that are available in source or object code form for various platforms, microcontrollers and DSPs including products from Texas Instruments, ARM, MIPS and Analog Devices.

The addition of AAC-ELD and HE-AAC v2 to Via’s AAC patent licensing program addresses the growth taking place in both IP-based communication and conferencing as well as high-speed multimedia download and streaming applications. Under the terms of Via’s AAC patent licensing program, hardware and software manufacturers will, for the first time, be able to license multiple AAC technologies under a single, unified patent license. The updated program, for the first time, covers MPEG AAC-ELD (Enhanced Low Delay) and MPEG HE-AAC v2, which includes PS (Parametric Stereo) and SBR (Spectral Band Replication) patents.

“We’re very pleased to see that our customers now have easy access to a unified AAC patent licensing program offered by Via. In combination with Fraunhofer’s software implementation offerings, this program provides a powerful, attractive AAC solution to the different industries,” says Stefan Geyersberger, Head of IP Licensing at Fraunhofer IIS. “Our software implementations are highly optimized in terms of audio quality, computational complexity and memory consumption. That way,” he continues, “mobile devices such as smartphones, music players or reporter phones can benefit from the high audio quality, low latency and extended battery life.”

According to Stefan Geyersberger, Via’s updated AAC patent licensing program offers a number of benefits to licensees. Key among these is the ability of customers to conveniently license the AAC family of technologies under a single-fee, unified license. In addition, the new program offers an updated, simplified reporting structure and the ability to aggregate volume across multiple AAC technologies and product categories. The new program also offers device-based pricing, annual pricing resets and per-product price caps for multi-channel devices.