Actions Technology and Ceva launch ATS296X audio SoCs with Bluetooth HDT and dual-RF on 4 August 2026

Actions Technology and Ceva announced the ATS296X-series Bluetooth audio SoCs on 4 August 2026, claiming the family is among the industry's earliest commercial implementations of Bluetooth High Data Throughput (HDT) technology^[1]. The chips raise peak Bluetooth throughput from 2 Mbps to approximately 7.5 Mbps, a figure tied to HDT's expected role as a key feature of the forthcoming Bluetooth 7.0 specification.

What the chips add

Bluetooth HDT is a planned feature of the upcoming Bluetooth 7.0 standard, and the ATS296X-series is built on Ceva's production-ready Ceva-Waves Bluetooth HDT platform^[1]. The higher bandwidth is claimed to enable:

• Lossless multi-channel audio streaming
• Ultra-low-latency gaming audio
• Faster over-the-air firmware updates
• Multichannel home audio - soundbar systems with wireless satellite speakers and subwoofers - a use case previous Bluetooth generations could not support natively, as they were limited to stereo

The series also incorporates Actions Technology's proprietary dual-RF architecture, which the company says enables concurrent operation across multiple usage scenarios and supports a broader range of wireless audio applications. Actions positions the dual-RF design as addressing "multi-scenario concurrent operation requirements," though specific RF band configurations have not been disclosed.

Target products and partnership history

The Ceva-Actions Technology collaboration has previously shipped more than 100 million wireless audio SoCs integrating Ceva connectivity and sensing IP. The ATS296X-series extends that track record into the HDT era, with Actions integrating the Ceva-Waves platform to give downstream customers what both companies describe as a migration path to Bluetooth HDT without requiring a full redesign.

Target product categories include:

• Bluetooth speakers
• Wireless microphones
• Multichannel home audio systems
• Other premium wireless audio products requiring high-quality, low-latency streaming

Actions Technology is a Zhuhai-based fabless semiconductor company focused on low-power AIoT SoCs. Ceva (NASDAQ: CEVA) licenses silicon and software IP for wireless connectivity and audio processing.

Interoperability status

The ATS296X-series is currently undergoing interoperability testing - full cross-vendor compatibility has not yet been demonstrated. Ahead of the Bluetooth 7.0 Core Specification's formal ratification, Ceva claims its HDT platform has participated in four industry interoperability events, validating its implementation against other Bluetooth chipset vendors. Those events are intended to mature the specification through multi-vendor testing before commercial products reach the market.

The Bluetooth 7.0 specification itself has not yet been ratified, which means the HDT feature set could still change before it is finalised. Buyers evaluating the ATS296X-series should note that interoperability with third-party HDT receivers remains a work in progress.

The practical test for the ATS296X-series will be whether the HDT ecosystem - transmitters, receivers, and the codec and profile layers that sit above the radio - matures quickly enough to support the multichannel and lossless use cases the companies are promoting. Ceva's four-event interoperability track record is a meaningful signal, but the gap between early silicon and broad ecosystem readiness in Bluetooth has historically been measured in years rather than months.