Philips Ensation Enters Wireless Audio Streaming Market

Royal Philips Electronics today announced the Ensation™ wireless audio link that will simplify wireless audio networking in the home. The new wireless chip technology makes it easy for digital audio device manufacturers to add wireless networking capabilities to their products, enabling the streaming of digital audio from PCs, home entertainment systems and other devices to multiple loudspeakers or wireless headsets. This will allow the Connected Consumer to enjoy high quality audio through out the home - without the hassle of cables or complicated installation.

The trend towards wireless solutions in the home and the proliferation of digital audio has led to demand for wireless technologies specifically for streaming audio. Ensation was designed to meet this demand and to make it easy for manufacturers to add wireless audio streaming to their devices. As well as being easy to install, the highly-integrated, two- chip wireless audio link offers one of the most robust solutions for wireless audio, meaning high-quality, uninterrupted streaming, even in a noisy environment.

"Philips' Ensation wireless audio link was designed to eliminate the complexity associated with wireless audio networking and provide our customers with a solution that is both easy to install and easy for the end-consumer to enjoy," said Rutton Ruttonsha, vice president and general manager, personal entertainment solutions at Philips Semiconductors. "This is an important part of our strategy to deliver high-quality audio solutions to the Connected Consumer, both at home and on the go."

The Ensation wireless audio link is a long-range, point-to-multipoint wireless technology with built-in audio features to ensure high-quality steaming audio. This includes automatic frequency selection, antenna diversity and error correction for interference-free, hi-fi sound. It also features low latency and digital signal processing to ensure all audio and video is in sync. Further key features include Ensation's bi-directional data link, allowing wireless volume and channel control, and low power operation within battery powered speakers and systems. Ensation is also dual-source and multi-room, offering consumers the flexibility of streaming audio from two sources and to multiple rooms.

Availability
Philips Ensation wireless chip technology will be available in Q2 2005.

About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of EUR 30.3 billion in 2004. With activities in the three interlocking domains of healthcare, lifestyle and technology and 160,900 employees in more than 60 countries, it has market leadership positions in medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring, color television sets, electric shavers, lighting and silicon system solutions. News from Philips is located at www.semiconductors.philips.com .