BR>Hi All,
Hi Bob!
BR>I am interested in converting a single channel audio signal to a
  >digital, serial signal.  Does anyone make a single chip to do this?  Is
  >it best done with a PC? If so what is the minimum CPU speed, ect.?
What is it that you wish to do with this signal...
BR>I am pretty much starting from scratch hear.  My electronics experience
  >lies in other areas so any help/comments would be helpful/appreciated
  >greatly.
OK - you are looking at digitizing a single audio channel with
reasonable fidelity so you need to have a sampling rate of about 40KHz
at 16 Bit samples.  This represents a digital serial rate of about
720,000 Hz ( assuming two extra bits for stop bits  ( 18*40 ))
Your basic computer serial port peaks out at around 50K to 100K max with
todays high-speed modems running at about 28K bits-per-second...
Needless to say, this is several times too slow for your applications.
If you do not need a real-time output of your digitized signal and you
are just interested in acquiring a signal, storing it onto your hard
disk, playing with it and later playing it back, you would be best
served by simply getting a soundblaster card for about $80 - this has
all of this plus the software and ( as they say on TV ) much much more!
It is not just a matter of the analog to digital circuitry, there are
also some fairly heavy audio filtration needs as well as a very quiet
power supply and i/o circuitry.
TTYL - Dave
---
 * QMPro 1.53 * For every vision there is an equal and opposite revision.
---------------