VS1002 is a single-chip MPEG layer 3 audio decoder including a digital to analog converter and earphone amplifier. In addition to MP3, it is able to decode MP3+V files providing half of the memory requirement for the same audio quality. Moreover, ADPCM encoding and decoding including analog are provided for voice compression. VS1002 can also play PCM and WAV files. Like other members of the VS10XX audio family, VS1002 is able to generate correct audio frequencies from wide range of master clock frequencies.

The device contains a high-performance low-power DSP processor core (VS_DSP4), working memory, 7.5 kBytes of program or data RAM for user applications, serial control and input data interfaces, high-quality oversampling variable-sample-rate stereo DAC, and oversampling 16-bit ADC.

VS1002 receives its input bitstream through a serial input bus. The input stream is decoded and passed to an 18-bit oversampling, multi-bit, sigma-delta DAC and earphone driver. The control commands of the device can be transferred via the same serial bus as the data. 7.5 kB RAM has been reserved for user application specific features, like DSP effects.