Conexant Systems (CEO: Kyung-bae Park), a leader in innovative semiconductor solutions for imaging, audio, video, embedded modem, and video surveillance applications, announced today the CX20745, a low-power stereo audio codec chip for consumer electronics. As the first product in a high-performance family for compact mobile devices, it delivers superior sound quality on mobile internet devices, smartbooks, and tablet PCs. Conexant is currently providing samples of the product to customers and also offers a complete evaluation kit (EVK) to help reduce development costs and time.

The low-power CX20745 product announced by Conexant today includes a power-efficient stereo Class-D amplifier capable of boosting up to 2 watts per channel to enhance audio performance. It also supports Open Mobile Terminal Platform* headsets with command sensing capabilities and supports both digital and analog inputs.

"The newly announced product provides features that minimize power consumption for battery-operated consumer electronics while significantly improving audio quality on mobile devices," said Philip Pompa, Senior Vice President of Product and Marketing at Conexant. "By leveraging our advanced experience and technical expertise across audio and voice digital signal processor (DSP) algorithms, Conexant will continue to strive to provide the best solutions to enhance the audio experience of customers worldwide."

This new audio solution features a hardware equalizer function that maximizes application performance without burdening the CPU. Additionally, additional features such as dynamic range and automatic microphone gain control expand the sound capture radius, enabling audio pickup from a distance. Furthermore, the CX20745 includes high-performance multi-bit digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital converters and supports differential internal signaling to improve audio accuracy. Moreover, to further enhance performance, it directly cuts off the current to eliminate audio "pops" (noise) that frequently occur during power state changes (e.g., when turning the device on or off).