A circuit for converting from an input serial pulse code modulated (PCM)
digital signal to an output pulse width modulated (PWM) digital signal
for driving a switching audio amplifier requiring a pulse width modulated
input signal, the circuit comprising a sample rate converter receiving
the input serial PCM digital signal at a first sampling frequency and
converting the input serial PCM digital signal to a second serial PCM
digital signal at a second frequency if the first sampling frequency is
lower than the second frequency, a digital filter stage for up-sampling
the second serial PCM digital signal to a third frequency and converting
the second serial PCM digital signal to a parallel digital signal, a
volume control stage receiving the parallel digital signal and generating
a volume adjusted parallel digital signal in accordance with a digital
volume command control signal, a digital cross-point estimator stage for
calculating a cross-point between the volume adjusted parallel digital
signal and a digital ramp signal and generating a parallel digital signal
representing a desired pulse width modulation of the switching audio
amplifier, a quantizing stage for quantizing the parallel digital signal
representing the desired pulse width modulation into a quantized parallel
digital signal representing the pulse width modulation to be applied to
the switching audio amplifier; and a PWM generation stage for converting
the quantized parallel digital signal into a PWM signal for driving the
switching audio amplifier.