Analog signal recording and playback integrated circuit and message management system

摘要

An apparatus and method for message management using nonvolatile analog signal recording and playback is disclosed. The device is an integrated circuit with interface circuitry for use as a peripheral device to a microcontroller or a microprocessor-based system. The integrated circuit is complete with differential analog inputs, auto attenuation to improve signal quality, filter, fixed references including a band gap reference, trimming, memory array, multiple closed loop sample and hold circuits, column device, row decoder, address counters, master oscillator, chip function timing circuits, and a serial peripheral interface (SPI) and circuits on a single chip. The integrated circuit is interfaced with a host microcontroller through the SPI. The host microcontroller can send a number of commands to the integrated circuit through the SPI for efficient message management. These commands include the basic commands to record or playback and various addressing and message cueing options. The system utilizes redundancy to increase production yield. It also utilizes a high speed test mode to reduce production testing time.