APT's managing director, Noel McKenna, received the award from Jim Stewart, chairman of the Institute of Export in Northern Ireland at its annual awards dinner, which took place on December 4th at the Dunadry Hotel, Belfast. Commenting on the award, McKenna told us: "We are delighted to receive this award from the Institute. We have been supplying high quality audio products to countries as far apart as Korea, Japan, Taiwan, USA, Canada, Middle East, South Africa and Europe for the last 10 years and we are constantly trying to open up new countries and market sectors to our technology. APT has contributed in excess of £20 million in electronic products exports to the NI economy over the last 10 years and this award will give us renewed enthusiasm to continue our efforts."
APT was established in 1989 to utilize new developments in signal processing technology that would enable the transmission, storage and manipulation of high quality audio. The company's core technology is based on research into digital audio data compression carried out at Queen's University Belfast. The subsequent, successful development of this technology generated a high quality compression algorithm known as apt-X, which forms the basis of its audio codec range. In both Standard and Enhanced formats, the APT algorithm has achieved international penetration in the world of broadcasting and telecommunications and has enabled the company to position itself at the forefront of digital audio compression technology.
Recently, APT released a software version of its algorithm - Soft apt-X(tm). This is now being licensed for a number of applications, including consumer electronics. The company is also working closely with George Lucas' Skywalker Sound facility in the US to develop a range of products that will allow the secure transfer of multi-channel audio using Internet protocols.
(Ruth Rossington)
