The IIS Chip Gallery
SARCO (1991)
by
| Application | Audio |
| Technology | 1200 |
| Manufacturer | VLSI Tech |
| Type | Diploma Thesis |
| Package | PGA144 |
| Dimensions | 6400μm x 9600μm |
| Gates | 60 kGE |
| Voltage | 5 V |
| Power | 2W (5V, 20MHz) mW |
| Clock | 20 MHz |
The name SARCO stands for: SAmpling Rate COnverter for digital audio signals.
The different sampling rates used in digital audio applications make sampling rate converters necessary whereever audio data have to be exchanged between such systems. Common sampling frequencies range from 32kHz (digital broadcast) up to 48kHz (professional audio). The required high order FIR filter (more than 10.000 24-bit coefficients which are interpolated to more than 5 million coefficients in real time) and the basic ASIC architecture have been designed in a previous project
A new design method has been used to verify the correct function of the circuit and to generate test vectors. A software model with the same modularity as the chip has been developed and compared to the circuit at all steps of the design. The ASIC performs sampling rate conversion for arbitrary input and output frequencies on a single chip with 18-bit accuracy.
The current die photo shows the version 2 of the SARCO where it was paired with the Freq
project. We are still looking for a picture that shows the first version.