China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation is focused on lowering power consumption in the release of new digital-to-analog audio converters.

Dolphin Integration has sealed a partnership with SMIC for the release of the latest generation of digital-to-analog audio converters that feature ultra-low power consumption, thanks to technology supplied by Dolphin.

"We are enthusiastic about this alliance," stated Henry Liu, SMIC's senior director of design services. "As a leading foundry that is recognized worldwide, we wanted the benefit of relying on Dolphin's robust audio virtual components for providing customers with the best performance mix for high volume SoCs."

The new shDAC95-Helium digital-to-analog converter from Dolphin, in SMIC's 0.11um and 0.13um technological processes, is now available under this agreement, and offers power consumption as low as 6.9 mW in playback mode and a SNR as high as 95 dB, marking it particularly useful for portable media player applications requiring high sound quality and long playback capability.