16 Dialog Semiconductor Plc | Annual report and accounts 2012 |  Section 2 | Business review Our products and key customers Our power management, audio and display  semiconductor solutions are designed for  portable devices, including smartphones, tablets, Ultrabooks™, ebooks, MP3, MP4 and other media players.  Mobile solutions Dialog focuses on three major sectors: mobile,  connectivity and automotive  and industrial. Dialog replaces discrete power management  components with highly integrated, single chip solutions that provide design simplicity,  reduce energy usage, save board space for other components and lower the overall bill of materials. Dialog’s Power Management  Integrated Circuits (PMICs) are fully configurable,  which means they can be programmed to meet the exact voltage and current needs of every component.  Effective power management in many portable devices presents an increasingly complex array  of design challenges. Smartphones, tablets and  Ultrabooks™ increasingly need to be able to run high definition video, games, GPS maps and audio content and connect via high speed  4G LTE and legacy 3G networks, Wi-Fi and  short-range wireless stands like Bluetooth. 4G LTE, for example, requires a lot more  processing power to decode far greater  amounts of data in the wireless spectrum. At the same time consumers demand displays  that are brighter, bigger and incorporate touch  functionality and, in the future, haptic feedback.  Each of these features is a major battery drain, creating a need for effective power  management technologies.  Multicore devices delegate simple tasks to one  core, while directing more complex, power- hungry tasks to the other core. Each of the  quad- or octal-core application processors needs  to be powered up and down into and out of  sleep state in particular sequences. Dialog’s  solutions excel at handling this power  management complexity. Dialog’s charging  solutions for lithium ion battery systems support  faster charging, more safely and from a wider  variety of sources. With a long legacy of delivering different power  management designs for world-leading mobile  phone manufacturers and portable consumer  OEMs, we seek to optimise all aspects of the  design, including electrical, thermal and  mechanical packaging considerations. These  designs offer sophisticated integration with  multiple power management and analog  functions on the chip, including programmable  high-performance LDOs (low dropout voltage  regulators), high-efficiency DC-DC voltage  converters, intelligent battery charging circuits,  software programmable LED drivers, sensor  ADCs, USB interfaces, and multichannel  audio capabilities. In 2012, Dialog launched a new class of power  management product – DA9063 – our fourth  generation of advanced system PMIC and  flagship product, targeting high-end multicore- based applications. A second member of the  family – DA9021 – addresses lower power  cost-sensitive applications. Our configurable PMICs enable late changes  in board-level designs as additional functionality  that is added into smartphone platforms during  the R&D process. As a platform-based PMIC  can support multiple phone designs, Dialog  helps its customers reduce inventories and  respond to the consumer market’s need for  volume flexibility.  Dialog’s Audio CODECs filter out extreme  background noise and increase the fidelity of  the sound through advanced echo cancellation  and DSP (Digital Signal Processing) technology  that delivers a rich, deep base and clear high  frequencies even in noisy environments. This is complemented by amplifier technology  to improve audio quality through the  headphones and speakers. In 2012, Dialog launched a new class of power  management product – DA9063 – our fourth  generation of advanced system power  management integrated circuit (PMIC). Dialog replaces discrete power management  components with highly integrated, single chip  solutions that provide design simplicity, reduce energy  usage, save board space for other components and lower the overall bill of materials. From left: 