Nuvoton Technology is expanding in the smart automotive market, offering advanced audio CODECs and DACs for diverse in-car audio applications.

As the automotive industry transitions into the "smart cabin" era, the demand for intelligent, high-performance audio systems is increasing, with higher expectations from automotive applications.

The product roadmap for Nuvoton's CODEC solutions is as follows:

Audio CODEC Roadmap

*SR: Sampling Rate

Nuvoton Technology follows strict automotive industry standards and offers AEC-Q100 certified products for in-car applications. Automotive-grade and industrial-grade materials are also interchangeable in P2P configurations. The automotive-grade audio codec chips include two models: stereo (NAU88U22) and mono (NAU88U10).

For common automotive systems like the T-BOX (eCall) applications, Nuvoton provides high signal-to-noise ratio multifunctional CODEC models. These models meet the audio ADC/DAC encoding and decoding requirements and also feature a DSP with specific functions. They support both PCM and I²S interfaces, with a maximum sampling rate of up to 48kHz.

 T-BOX Block Diagram

With the rapid demand growth for "3D audio" and "immersive sound" in the smart cabin era, automotive manufacturers are demonstrating their strength in hardware and software. As a result, selecting key components (such as audio CODECs, audio amplifiers, and audio DSPs) has become especially important from an application standpoint.

ADC Applications:
In intelligent cabin systems, applications like microphone pickup, dash cams, voice recognition, sound localization, and noise reduction require converting analog microphone signals into digital data, which the audio unit or in-vehicle SOC then processes. These applications demand high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and high audio sampling frequency. Nuvoton offers a range of high-cost-performance industrial and automotive-grade models. The well-known NAU85L40B features multiple ADC channels, supports TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) PCM output, and is available in a QFN28L package.

DAC Applications:
In automotive front-end applications, digital signals from the SOC or DSP are often converted to analog signals to drive the backend analog power amplifier. In aftermarket applications, digital signals are converted to analog to retrofit speakers. The number of channels in the backend amplifier typically determines the DAC channel configuration. The NAU8421 is a 24-bit stereo DAC with a high SNR of 128dB, and it is available in a QFN32 package.

Audio ADC/DAC Roadmap

*SR: Sampling Rate

◼️ Audio CODEC Series - Mono CODEC

◼️ Audio CODEC Series - Mono CODEC

◼️ Audio CODEC Series - Stereo CODEC

◼️ Audio CODEC Series - ULP (Ultra Low Power) CODEC

◼️ Audio ADC Series

◼️ Audio DAC Series

*Under Development

◼️ Precision ADC Series

*SR: Sampling Rate

This article primarily introduces audio CODEC and ADC/DAC solutions for automotive applications. We will continue to release and recommend Nuvoton Technology's new products and solutions for consumer applications in the future.