Digital to analog converter with time dithering to remove audio tones

A Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) transceiving integrated circuit that services voice communications in a WLAN with at least one WLAN device, the WLAN transceiving integrated circuit comprising:

• a WLAN interface that wirelessly communicates with the at least one WLAN device to receive inbound packetized audio data from the at least one WLAN device and to transmit outbound packetized audio data to the at least one WLAN device;
• a transcoder operably coupled to the WLAN interface, wherein the transcoder receives the inbound packetized audio data and converts the inbound packetized audio data to inbound Pulse Code Modulated (PCM) WLAN audio data, and wherein the transcoder receives outbound PCM WLAN audio data and converts the outbound PCM WLAN audio data to the outbound packetized audio data;
• and
• an audio coder/decoder operably coupled to the transcoder, the coder/decoder including a digital-to-analog-converter-converter (DAC) that that receives the outbound PCM WLAN audio data and that produces an analog audio signal, the DAC comprising:
• an interpolation filter that receives the outbound PCM WLAN audio data and that interpolates and filters the outbound PCM WLAN audio data to produce an interpolated and filtered digital signal;
• a modulator that receives the interpolated and filtered digital signal and a feedback signal, wherein the modulator modulates the interpolated and filtered digital signal based upon the feedback signal to produce a modulated signal at a modulator clock rate;
• and
• a time dither clock reduction circuit that receives the modulated signal, wherein the time dither clock reduction circuit applies both clock reduction and time dithering to the modulated signal to produce a time dithered/clock reduced modulated signal, and wherein the time dithered/clock reduced modulated signal serves as the analog audio signal and also serves as the feedback signal.

A method for converting digital data to an analog signal comprising:

• receiving the digital data, interpolating the digital data, and filtering the digital data to produce an interpolated and filtered digital signal;
• modulating the interpolated and filtered digital signal based upon a feedback signal to produce a modulated signal at a modulator clock rate;
• and
• applying both clock reduction and time dithering to the modulated signal to produce a time dithered/clock reduced modulated signal, wherein the time dithered/clock reduced modulated signal serves as the analog signal and also serves as the feedback signal.