AT&T Microelectronics of Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, has announced a new single-chip codec signal coder-decoder. In standard codecs, the signal is subdivided proportionally to its amplitude, so that the larger the signal, the coarser the resolution, or definition, of the signal, which usually means more distortion. AT&T claims that its new T7520A Codec offers clearer signals for large signal amplitude, because it divides all signals equally regardless of amplitude. The T7520A is therefore being offered for speech applications which require the processing power of a digital signal processor for effective signal processing. The standard decoders has a signal-to distortion-plus-noise ratio of 35 deciBels, but AT&T claims that its new offering does much better than that, getting the ratio right down to 60dB. As digital signal processing is introduced into more and more systems, designers will look to high-precision codecs that can provide a quality analog interface claims Frank Martin, the company’s market management vice-president. The T7520A single-chip codec is manufactured at AT&T Microelectronics’ Allentown, Pennsylvania plant, and sells for $25 when you order 1,000 or more of the things.
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