1997-10-03 , E/IC-839/410

In common with a wide range of other consumer electronics equipment, telephone answering machines and cordless phones now feature digital keypad control of all their functions, including loudspeaker/earpiece volume, ring-tone volume and answer response time. Until now, however, designers had to add a considerable amount of peripheral circuitry around conventional telephone ICs in order to implement these digital control features.

With the introduction today of the UBA1707 Telephone Line Interface IC, Philips Semiconductors, the largest European semiconductor company, has greatly simplified the design problem. This brand new single-chip solution not only brings the 'analog' functions of cordless phone basestations and telephone answering machines under full digital control, it also includes an on-chip loudspeaker amplifier, microphone amplifier and electronic hook control. In addition, the UBA1707 adapts easily to different telephone line standards, allowing manufacturers to produce a single 'universal' pc board assembly that can be used in telephone equipment worldwide.

"The UBA1707 is the only fully integrated, fully programmable line interface IC tailored specifically to the requirements of digital answering machines and cordless phone basestations," said Product Marketing Manager Peter Biermans. "Its industry-standard 3-wire bus interface means it can be controlled by any microcontroller on the market."

The standard low-cost line interface ICs produced for conventional phone sets are not an optimum solution for answering machines and cordless basestations because they are designed to work with low level microphone signals and fixed audio pathways. As a result, line interface and analog speech-processing functions in answering machines and cordless phone basestations are still implemented using discrete components such as op-amps, standard logic chips and audio amplifier ICs. The UBA1707 from Philips Semiconductors now provides manufacturers with a true single-chip alternative, offering them considerable reductions in component count and manufacturing costs, and allowing them to embrace radically new phone designs that are far less constrained by the volume of electronics they have to contain.

"One out of every two conventional telephone sets produced in the world contains Philips line interface ICs," commented Mr. Biermans. "The introduction of the UBA1707 is the first step in making the same true for answering machines, cordless telephones and fax machines."

Philips Semiconductors, a division of Philips Electronics NV, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is the ninth largest semiconductor supplier in the world and the third largest supplier of discretes in the world. Philips Semiconductors' innovations in digital audio, video, and mobile technology position the company as a leader in the consumer, multimedia and wireless communications markets. Sales offices are located in all major markets around the world and are supported by systems labs.