Crown’s DriveCore Chip Smaller than a Coin

Crown's DriveCore amplifier chip is dwarfed by a quarter.

It’s not often that the look of the technology chip is the sexiest thing about an amplifier, but that may be the case with Crown Audio’s ComTech DriveCore series of amplifiers, which it introduced at InfoComm 2010.

That’s not to say the high-performance, energy-efficient amps don’t sound great; it’s just that the tiny size of the DriveCore chip compared to conventional circuit boards is that dazzling.

Andy Flint, Crown’s marketing manager, displayed the chip along side a quarter on a traditional circuit board. The benefit of the minuscule size, he says, is energy efficiency and weight reduction.

With the DriveCore technology, the amps offer greater than 90 percent efficiency with no compromise in performance, boasting a signal-to-noise ratio of 110dB, according to Crown. DriveCore has patented feedback and protection circuits integrated into the silicon for fast and accurate response.

"The ComTech DriveCore introduction is destructive in the sense that it obsoletes everything that has come before it. Today's introduction is a watershed event in amplifier design and manufacturing in every aspect from performance, weight, heat generation and efficiency," Marc Kellom, vice president of marketing for Crown, says in a press release.

The amplifiers are convection-cooled and Energy Star 2.0 compliant. Crown says its new advanced circuit components use fewer resources in manufacturing, but have also contributed to significant weight reduction in the amplifiers that result in less energy consumption.

The amplifier's high operating efficiency translates into greater efficiency for output and each of the four amplifiers in the series weighs only 10lbs.

Crown says the four-model ComTech DriveCore series offers up to eight channels and 150 watts per channel in a one-unit chassis without a fan and is ideal for fixed-installation environments from video conferencing to stadium suites.