Speech coding circuit

Claim 1

A speech coding circuit comprising: a power comparator for comparing power of an analog input with a predetermined input power threshold value to produce a level detection flag, which is indicative of voice active or voice non-active, respectively, in dependence upon whether the power of the analog input or its background noise is greater or smaller than the predetermined power threshold value; a mode switch receptive of said level detection flag for producing, for each frame period, a mode control signal which assumes an activation state and a sleep state in correspondence to said voice active or said voice non-active, respectively, of said level detection flag; a PCM encoder controlled into an activated mode or a sleep mode, respectively, in response to the activation state or the sleep state of the mode control signal from the mode switch for converting the analog input into a digital output in case of its activated mode; and a speech coder with voice activity detector controlled into an activated mode or a sleep mode, respectively, in response to the activation state or the sleep state of the mode control signal from the mode switch for encoding, in case of its activated mode, the digital output from the PCM encoder into speech coding data and for detecting, in case of its activated mode, whether the analog input is said voice active or said voice non-active, for each frame period, to produce in case of its activated mode a speech detection flag, which indicates whether the analog input is voice active or voice non-active.