Patent ID: 7085724

Claim:
A linking unit ( 100 ) for generating linking information L indicating components of two consecutive extended segments sp and sc which partially overlap and which may be linked together in order to form a sinusoidal track, the segments sp and sc approximating consecutive segments of a sinusoidal audio or speech signal s, the linking unit comprising: a calculating unit ( 120 ) for generating a similarity matrix S(m,n) in response to received sinusoidal code data including information about the amplitudes and the frequencies of M components x m with m=1 . . . M of the extended previous segment sp and of N components y n with n=1 . . . N of the extended current segment sc, wherein the values of said similarity matrix represent the similarity between the m'th component x m of said extended previous segment sp and the n'th component y n of said extended current segment sc for m=1 . . . M and n=1 . . . N; and an evaluating unit ( 140 ) for receiving and evaluating said similarity matrix S(m,n) in order to generate said linking information L by selecting those pairs of components (m,n) the similarity of which is maximal at least within the an overlapping region; characterised in that the sinusoidal code data (Dp, Dc) is enlarged by further comprising information about the phase of at least some of the M components x m and at least some of the N components y n ; the calculating unit ( 120 ) is adapted to calculate the similarity matrix S(m,n) by additionally evaluating the phase consistency between the m'th component x m of the extended previous segment sp and the n'th component y n of the extended current segment sc.