A 1mW only Wireless Phone

Voiceband D to A CODEC
N. Moeneclaey, F. Rouleau, P. Guignon and P. Carbou
Texas Instruments France
Av. Jack Kilby B.P. 5
F-06271 Villeneuve Loubet

The voiceband downlink described in this paper is a part of a wireless

CODEC. It relies on a Sigma-Delta modulator followed by a 1 Bit current
mode DAC including an FIR filter. This new architecture results in very
low power consumption. The design of the CODEC and actual test results
are given.

1. Introduction
A typical Downlink Channel for a mobile phone voiceband CODEC [1] integrates an IIR
digital filter, a digital Sigma-Delta modulator giving a signal to a 1 bit DAC, the analog differ-
ential signal is then filtered by a switched capacitor filter followed by a programmable gain and
volume control stage. Typically, the digital audio input (13 bits, signed) comes from a speech
processor (DSP), the analog output is connected to the power amplifier driving the earphone
speaker.
The IIR filter is used to provide very deep out-of-band attenuation in the frequency
response of the voice CODEC. The Sigma-Delta modulator delivers an oversampled 1 bit digi-
tal signal with low quantization noise in the voiceband. This is followed by a switched capaci-
tor filter which attenuates the considerable high frequency noise introduced by the Sigma-
Delta modulator.
Figure 1 represents a new solution for a voiceband CODEC. The 1bit DAC and the
switched capacitor filter (power consuming) are replaced by a current mode DAC including a
FIR filter followed by a current-to-voltage conversion stage. Volume control (PVC) is done in
the I to V conversion stage and the gain control includes an integrated RC low-pass filter. The
motivation for this solution is power reduction. This paper describes the design of the current
mode DAC including the FIR filter and the I to V Stage from theory to measurement on real-
ized samples.
2. Theory
FIR filtering consists of a continuous weighted sum of 0 to N time delayed inputs of the
filter. The different weight values are the coefficients which determine transfer function. FIR
filtering is predominately used in digital processing, it is easy to implement and always stable,
but it requires a high number of coefficients to obtain deep out-of-band attenuation.
Figure 2 describes a method for integration of an FIR filter in a 1 bit current mode DAC.
The 1 bit digital signal from the Sigma-Delta modulator is delayed N times in a cascade of D
flip-flops. The Q output of each flip-flop controls the direction of the output current of a
weighted source. The FIR filter is realized by summing the output current of the "ON" sources
on a common node. To allow positive and negative output, half of the total possible weighted-
source current is permanently subtracted. The coefficients of the filter are the weights of the
current sources. The reference voltage (Vref) of the DAC is converted to a reference current
with a resistor which is used as the unit current for the weighted sources. This resistor must be
matched with the I to V stage resistor in order to obtain a process-independent overall gain for
the voice CODEC.
The Sigma-Delta modulator used in the voiceband channel is a third order type modula-
tor, its oversampling frequency is 960 kHz. The grey signal in Figure 3 represents the output
spectrum of the third order modulator for a 1 kHz input digital sine. The quantization noise
spectra has a zero point at about 7 kHz, before this frequency the slope of the noise is 20 dB/
decade, after it is 60 dB/decade which corresponds to a third order Sigma-Delta modulator.
3. FIR filter
The main utility of the FIR filter is to suppress the high frequency quantization noise (f >
20 to 30 kHz). The sizing of the FIR filter is determined by compromising:
• The out-of-band attenuation.
• The number and value of the FIR coefficients determining the size of the
current source array and it’s power consumption.
To obtain low attenuation in the voice band and good rejection out-of-band, a large num-
ber of current sources and high values for the coefficients are necessary. The specifications for
the entire voiceband channel response are the following:
• The out-of-band noise should be less than -45 dB (0dB corresponds to the.
maximum amplitude of the output sinewave).
• The ripple in the base band (300-3400 Hz) must be within +/- 1 dB.
A low-pass active RC filter in the PGA stage following the DAC has been added. This fil-
ter is used to suppress the very high frequency noise (f > 100 kHz), thus relaxing considerably
the constraints on the FIR sizing. This filter’s cut-off frequency relies on the values of a resistor
and a capacitor, known only at 20% accuracy due to process variation. For this RC filter, the
resistor and the capacitor values are set to guarantee a cut frequency between 20 kHz and 35
kHz, those values allow a good attenuation at high frequency and no attenuation in the voice-
band.
The sizing of the FIR was realized using dedicated software to calculate the coefficients
(lp-designer [2]) and to simulate the complete voiceband channel in the time domain (Napa
[2]).The number of coefficients of the FIR is 33, and the total number of unit current sources in
the array is 68. The FIR frequency response is given in Figure 4.
The attenuation in the voiceband at -0.14dB is low, the stopband frequency (first zero
point value) is set to 36.2 kHz and the filter rejection is -23 dB. The digital signal at the input
of the Sigma-Delta is at 40 kHz rate, so an image of the signal spectra appears at this fre-
quency. By setting the stopband frequency to around 40 kHz the zero point may be used to sup-
press the image of the signal spectra. The optimum value obtained by simulation was 36.2
kHz.
The signal in black on Figure 3 represents the output spectrum of the third order modula-
tor followed by the FIR and the active RC filter (with a cut-off frequency of 35 kHz, worst case
for the out of band attenuation). The out-of-band noise is lower than -55dB.
The electrical design of the FIR is close to the schematic of the Figure 2. Cascoded cur-
rent sources for the PMOS and NMOS sources have been used to obtain a very high output
impedance for the DAC and a very precise copy of the reference current. Special care is
required for the current switches, commutation between the normal output and a dummy out-
put is achieve by two CMOS switches with a synchronized command signal. The dummy out-
put voltage is set to the analog ground to avoid desaturation of the sources when they are
"OFF".
4. I. to V. stage
The use of a current mode DAC requires an I to V stage shown in Figure 5. To reduce the
complexity of the voice CODEC, the volume control of the channel has been incorporated into
this stage. The principle is to use an operational amplifier with a resistor in feedback and to
supply the output current of the FIR filter to this resistor. The operational amplifier maintains
the analog ground voltage at the input node of the resistor, thus the converted signal will be ref-
erenced to the analog ground. Good matching between the resistors used in the I-to-V stage
and the resistor in the current mode FIR is needed to guarantee a gain independent of process
variations.
The volume control can easily be achieved by varying the value of the conversion resis-
tor. To set the correct number of unit resistances, a series of switches are required. This intro-
duces a problem due to the switches "ON" resistances which is non negligible. However, by
using a special switch arrangement, and making use of the high output impedance of the cur-
rent mode FIR, it was possible to obtain a conversion resistor independent of the "ON" conduc-
tances of the switches.
The principle is illustrated in Figure 5: since no DC current flows in this input, there will
be no voltage drop in the switches connected to the inverting input of the amplifier. So node A
will be at analog ground voltage in DC. A voltage drop exists in the other switches (Bigger
ones) but this voltage is between the output of the FIR and node A, and it has a low impact on
the output current of the FIR as its output resistance is very high.
5. Implementation
The voiceband channel is a part of a CODEC for a wireless telephone. It was fabricated
in 0.8 µm double poly, double metal, CMOS process. The voltage supply of the chip is 3V (+/-
10%), so the use of low-threshold voltage MOS transistors was very useful for cascode stages.
The source array implementation was a key part of the design success. Using 2 identical
current source arrays and delay lines arranged symmetrically, we obtain a gradient-free match-
ing between current sources. Moreover Napa statistical simulations show that FIR filters are
tolerant to a random error between the current sources values. The layout of the voiceband
CODEC is presented in the Figure 6, the DAC (FIR and I to V stage) measures 0.708 mm2.
6. Test results
The voiceband downlink CODEC has been characterized. Table 1 gives a summary of
the main test results. The power consumption of the DAC (including the FIR and the I to V
stage) is only 1 mW. The linearity of the converter is better than that of an ideal 12 bit DAC.
The maximum SNR (calculated using Psophometric filter) is 70 dB, obtained for an input
amplitude of 0 dBm0.
Figure 7 shows the output spectrum of the DAC for a 1 kHz input signal of -10 dBm0
amplitude (the noise spectrum decreases at 7 kHz due to a Low Pass Filter used for the charac-
terization). Figure 8 represents the TSNR of the Converter for an input signal of 1 kHz.
7. Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge Francine Moureaud & Daniel Novelli for their
work on the layout of the DAC. We would like to thank too Alain Chiari & Pascal Binacchi for
the precise test results that were done on the voiceband CODEC. This work would not have
been possible without the help of all the Mixed Signal and Linear Product Team of Texas
Instruments France and Dallas.
Table 1 : Main characteristics of the Voice Downlink CODEC
Linearity > 12 Bits Freq. Response (+/- 1 dB) 300 - 3300 Hz
Max SNR 70 dB Power Consumption 360 µA
Idle Channel Noise -77 dBm0 Dissipated Power 1 mW @ 3 V
Gain PVC (6 dB step) -12 dB to 12 dB Power Supply 3 V (+/- 10%)

[1] P. Minogue, “A 3 V GSM Codec” IEEE JSSC, VOL. 30, No. 12, December 1995
 [2] "Napa" & "lp-designer" are TI private softwares.

Figure 1 New structure for the Voiceband CODEC Figure 2 Analog FIR filter

Simulated FIR transfer fonction

0
33 taps FIR
-10

-20

-30
dB

-40

-50

-60
100 1000 10000 100000
f[Hz]
Figure 2 Output spectrum of the Voiceband CODEC Figure 4 Transfer function of the FIR

Figure 5 Principle of the I to V stage Figure 6 Layout of the DAC

Measured Output Spectrum
0
Third order Modulator + FIR + LPF

-20

-40

-60
dB

-80

-100

-120
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
f[Hz]
Figure 7 Measured output spectrum Figure 8 TSNR of the DAC