Industry insiders share a design that can extend battery life

Manufacturers of portable consumer electronic devices face many challenges. They must develop cost-effective, high-performance, and versatile audio solutions while extending battery life. On the other hand, manufacturers must also reduce development time to be the first to market. With the development of ultra-low-power codecs with embedded mini DSPs and powerful graphical programming tools, manufacturers are now able to meet these complex requirements.

The ultra-low power consumption and processing power of these devices provide low-power audio solutions for systems that require a stand-alone codec, as well as systems that integrate embedded analog I/O into baseband or application processor chips. The graphical programming environment and rich software link library can shorten the time to complete application development, making it much less than the time required for development in a general programming environment.

In terms of low power operation, many of the new generation of low power codecs are able to operate the analog and digital cores at a single voltage of 1.5V to 1.8V, and can further reduce power consumption by operating the digital core at a voltage as low as 1.26V. Many devices have low power operating modes, however, additional power adjustment options allow designers to adjust power according to the individual configuration and processing options used during recording and playback. This helps designers minimize power consumption and provide flexibility to optimize based on different conditions such as the number of input and output channels, output drive requirements, sampling rate, input and output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance required, and processing functions used.

As shown in Figure 1, the power consumption of the codec can be adjusted through this function to achieve optimal performance for different audio reproduction modes (incoming call, SMS ringtone, voice communication and music playback), different I/O configurations (mobile phone and mobile phone operation) and different signal processing requirements (low noise and high noise communication environment). The power regulation control can provide additional configuration options for analog bypass operation mode without conversion, PLL and PLL-free operation, or Class D and Class AB headphone driver configurations, and these configuration controls are all managed through the I2C or SPI bus.

Power regulation can significantly extend the battery life of portable audio devices. Low-power operation modes enable the ultra-low-power codec with signal processing to reduce power consumption to less than 5mW for incoming call/text ringtones, less than 7mW for 8kHz or 16kHz voice communications, and less than 10mW for the highest quality 44.1kHz stereo headphone music playback.

Combining ultra-low power data conversion and low power signal processing functions on the same chip can significantly reduce power consumption in common system architectures that include an application processor and a codec, where the ultra-low power codec can perform some or all of the audio processing functions of the application processor.

Systems with baseband chips or application processor chips have analog input and/or output capabilities. Codecs with signal processing capabilities provide a low-cost and short development process solution that can integrate other functions or features without reprogramming or replacing existing baseband or application processors. Another powerful tool that can extend battery life is the new ultra-low power codec with embedded mini DSP. These devices and their powerful graphical programming tools can provide low-power audio solutions for many portable audio processing and communication system architectures. Among them, the power consumption of stereo playback can be as low as 2.4mW, which is achieved by programming using a graphical software environment, which can also simplify the manufacturer's programming.

The portable consumer electronics market is highly competitive and the pace of change is very fast. Fast time-to-market and ultra-low power consumption can shorten the design process for manufacturers and help them develop differentiated products. Ultra-low power audio converters with integrated DSP and a graphical software development environment that helps accelerate programming are among the competitive advantages.