The CMX software built in to QUALCOMM's Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) chipsets provides the audio and multimedia capabilities used by handset manufacturers and application developers to deliver rich multimedia content via mobile handsets. CMX was developed jointly by Faith Inc. and QUALCOMM. Faith Inc. provides the internal c-midi software and format, synchronization format, and industry leading synthesizers and wavetables.

Although the CMX mobile multimedia engine supports playback of all mobile formats, content providers in the know create content for CMX-enabled phones in the CMX file format by using CMX authoring tools developed by QUALCOMM and its partners. Everything necessary to receive and play the content, including decoders for each type of media, an animation player, and a music synthesizer, is built into the chipset.


  • Allows content developers to create high quality content combining audio, graphics, vibration, LED in a single file and more across a large number of handsets in the market.
  • Provides handset manufactures with a very low cost total software solution for both low and high end handsets.
  • Enables a large amount of existing CMX content to be played on each new CMX device, therefore giving end users access to a vast amount of content options.
  • CMX game and application audio support includes additional application-specific features, like simultaneous playback of multiple MIDI, QCP and ADPCM tracks, which can be triggered by game and user input events.
  • MIDI/XMF
  • Audio (QCELP, ADPCM, AAC)
  • Images (PNG, JPG)
  • Animation (SAF, SVG)
  • Text
  • Wipe
  • Vibration
  • LED


CMX software contains a fully featured wavetable synthesizer capable of synthesizing high-quality, stereo MIDI music as output. QUALCOMM's audio capabilities are directly accessible by application and game developers. These developers can use CMX APIs to take full advantage of all the various CMX-supported audio formats, including MIDI, WAV, and QCELP.

CMX software supports these sound formats:
  • General MIDI
  • SP-MIDI
  • XMF with DLS
  • ADPCM
  • QCELP
  • AAC
  • AACPlus


CMX software supports these graphic formats:
  • JPG
  • BMP
  • PNG
  • GIF
Using the CMX file format, several images can be synchronized to produce a slide show effect. This can be used to provide video-like content on handsets that do not support embedded video solutions.



CMX software supports animation in both SAF and SVG formats.  SVG allows for endless possibilities including user interaction (like games and user interfaces) and dynamic database calls (such as location-based apps and weather reports) and can be created with any SVG authoring tool.  Animation in the mobile-optimized SAF format is created with the SAF Animator tool. The CMX Studio authoring tool available for download from this site does not include the animation technology.



Text and wipe can also be synchronized in the CMX file format using the CMX Studio authoring tool for use in mobile karaoke applications. Wipe changes the color of the text, character by character, to indicate the progress of song lyrics. Mobile karaoke: it doesn't get more fun than this.



Using the CMX Studio authoring tool, you can also create files that synchronize LED color and vibrations, turning both on and off. Today's answer to a mobile disco.



For more information on CMX, visit QUALCOMM's CMX site here.



CMX is a trademark of QUALCOMM. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their legal holders.