Wolfson Microelectronics ( www.wolfsonmicro.com ) has announced the 'WM2002' stereo headphone driver. The WM2002 is the world's first mass-produced ASIC product featuring ANC (Ambient Noise Cancelling). With the WM2002, which incorporates Wolfson's innovative myZone™ digital ANC technology, global manufacturers are expected to be able to mass-produce headphones and headsets with noise cancellation capabilities at reasonable prices.

The WM2002 utilizes proprietary feed-forward noise cancellation technology, providing best-in-class digital ANC performance capable of eliminating up to 30dB of ambient noise. In particular, the WM2002 is equipped with an acoustic improvisation function capable of eliminating noise up to 3.5kHz. Consequently, the WM2002 consistently maintains excellent audio quality, allowing users to listen to music or make calls even amidst loud ambient noise. Furthermore, the WM2002 enables manufacturers to drastically reduce development costs, time-to-market, and production processes, while also offering the flexibility to apply superior designs to the final product by minimizing PCB space.

The WM2002 is designed to be combined with earpad-type or earbud-type headsets or headphones, or used in embedded applications. It provides analog playback and analog/digital microphone input functions for noise monitoring microphones, and is ideally compatible with Wolfson’s analog/digital silicon MEMS microphone products.

In addition, the WM2002 provides integrated power management capabilities consisting of a DC/DC converter, a charge pump, and an LDO regulator. This is because all these devices can operate on a single AAA battery, two AAA batteries, or an external power source.