On January 7, 2022, ADI China (Analog Semiconductor) held the "Voice of Chips" media sharing party in Beijing, and Aifu Technology was invited to participate. At the meeting, Zhao Yimiao, general manager of ADI China‘s product division, and He Yuan, senior market application manager, reviewed and introduced to the media several chip products released by ADI China this year and applied in different industries.

Among them, the chip solution ADAU1860 for TWS earphones and the chip ADAU1850 that provide active noise reduction function alone, and the sensor front-end ADPD6000 for monitoring vital signs (ECG, blood oxygen, body fat rate) are the ones most closely related to consumer electronics.

In the analog noise reduction era in the early days of the development of noise-cancelling headphones, ADI was the main technology supplier of BOSE, the largest noise-cancelling headphone brand at that time. In the digital age, ADI has also provided a complete solution. The previous generation products have been adopted by noise-cancelling headphone manufacturers such as BOSE, Wanmo, and Xiaoniao.

Among them, ADAU1850 is a chip that provides noise reduction function alone. It has a package size of 3.0x1.8mm and can be easily integrated into the existing Bluetooth headset solution by way of an external chip. It provides a signal-to-noise ratio of 106dB, a sampling rate of 768kHz, and can achieve a noise floor of 3V and an end-to-end low latency of 5s.

The full-featured ADAU1860 chip integrates noise reduction and other headphone-related functions, provides stronger DSP computing power, supports adaptive EQ, spatial audio, voice wake-up, wind noise protection, and achieves 6mW at the hardware level. Ultra low power consumption. For the above two chips, ADI provides manufacturers with ANC filter development tools and overall algorithm reference design, which is very easy to get started.

These two chips are independently developed by ADI China Division, excluding the application in TWS Bluetooth headset. ADI also plans to reduce noise in space areas such as cars and kitchens, and also looks forward to the future use of its chips in hearing aids, and also mentions the importance of noise-cancelling headphones for hearing protection.

Following the audio solution, ADI also introduced the ADPD6000, a solution for vital signs monitoring (VSM). The chip is also independently designed and developed by ADI China. It is mainly used for health monitoring on smart watches, and provides monitoring functions for heart rate, ECG, blood oxygen, and body fat rate.

In the part of heart rate and blood oxygen optical monitoring, it can provide a very high signal-to-noise ratio, and can ensure high original signal quality in the case of different skin colors, tattoos, and ambient light. The electrode monitoring of ECG and body fat is also optimized for the skin condition of different scenarios (such as dry environment in winter). ADI also provided a watch engineering prototype integrated with the chip on the spot, and opened the body fat rate monitoring for experience. After on-site testing by myself and other media colleagues, the data accuracy is high, which is consistent with the test data of myself using the body fat scale. The deviation is small. We can expect a smart watch with body fat rate monitoring function to be launched within the year.

At the same time, ADI also revealed that it is also developing sensors and technologies that support optical CNIBP (cuffless blood pressure monitoring) and blood glucose monitoring. As a technology supplier, ADI not only provides hardware equipment, but also provides a complete set of software algorithms. At the same time, it also provides in-depth customization, consultation and joint development to smart equipment manufacturers, and even helps manufacturers in "passing medical equipment certification".

In addition to the above two main products, the ADI meeting also introduced the electric vehicle battery management solution ADBMS1816 and the optical module controller ADuCM430, two products in other fields.