A high-performance analog front-end 14-bit codec for 2.7-V digital cellular phones

A low-voltage, low-power, CMOS-programmable analog front-end IC for 2.7-V digital cellular phone applications is presented. The chip can be configured either as a classical A/μ law PCM codec or as a 14-bit uniform codec. The main objective of the uniform codec is to achieve a signal-to-noise (S/N) and a signal-to-total-harmonic-distortion (S/THD) ratio for the complete A/D and D/A paths better than 80 dB at full scale. A high-performance speech interface is made of a microphone preamplifier with about 0.5 mV offset and 1.3 μV_rms input-referred noise for the transmit channel, and two power amplifiers capable of driving toads up to 27 Ω or 50 nF with 4 V_pp output voltages and -80 dB of THD in the receive path. A tone generator that can also be used for ringing or DTMF signaling purposes, and a dedicated pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) output for a buzzer complete the chip functions. All programmable functions can be accessed via a standard four-wire control interface. This performance has been achieved from a 2.7-V supply with operative and standby power consumptions of 13 mW and 1.5 μW, respectively. The chip area is 10.5 mm² (including scribe line) in a 0.5-μm n-well CMOS technology