London (PRWEB) June 6, 2005
Frontier Silicon the leading fabless manufacturer of semiconductors for mobile digital television and DAB digital radio products has launched Venice 3 FS2023, an ultra low power tri-band DAB digital radio receiver module which also integrates an FM radio receiver with RDS in the same chip. The power consumption of the new module is less than half of existing solutions, enabling up to 60 hours of battery life in a portable DAB radio. Additionally, manufacturers can significantly reduce system costs as no extra components are required to implement FM/RDS, and no additional microprocessor is required to implement high-end radio features such as the DABplus electronic program guide and rewind radio. Hence Venice 3 provides significant new opportunities for implementing DAB/FM/RDS capability in low cost and battery operated portable radios.
This latest DAB module from Frontier Silicon is electrically and mechanically compatible with previous generations of the market leading Venice module family, enabling manufacturers to quickly enhance earlier product designs for use in new geographical regions. For example, products developed for the UK based on Venice 1 can be updated with Venice 3 to support L-band for regions such as The Netherlands, Germany and Italy, or versatile new features can also be easily added.
The new Venice 3 module is based on the Frontier Silicons Chorus processor, which has shipped over two million devices and is driving the growth of DAB digital radio in Europe. Chorus is a single chip digital radio baseband IC optimised for Eureka 147 and capable of decoding multiple DAB services simultaneously. Chorus is architected to allow it to receive DAB services while running other processor-intensive applications to allow the implementation of value added features such as DABplus, the user interface and advanced data service decoding.
Venice 3 integrates the Chorus baseband processor with an optimised RF front-end and boot Flash plus stereo DAC to receive signals in the Band II, Band III and L-Band frequencies; in addition, FM/RDS software allows the module to function as an FM radio receiver without the need for a separate FM tuner chip. The FM user interface provides access to all RDS specific features.
The integrated DAB/FM/RDS module can be configured either in master or slave mode, which means that it can be used to create a fully-featured radio by simply adding power source, antenna, and LCD keypad, or an external microcontroller can be used to control it using a choice of industry standard serial protocols. With the flexible RF connector options in Venice 3, manufacturers can position the RF module close to the antenna, giving them complete flexibility in product development and design.
The new Venice 3 integrated DAB/FM/RDS module measures just 100mm x 40mm x 8mm high, and is available now.
About Frontier Silicon
Frontier Silicon is an award-winning company at the forefront of the digital multimedia revolution with a range of semiconductor solutions for mobile digital television, digital TV and digital radio.
The company develops and delivers both the broadcast signal receiver modules and digital processing circuits as individual chips and complete system modules to leading consumer electronics and mobile phone brands.
As a fabless semiconductor business, Frontier Silicon’s core products include complete DAB modules, DVB-T solutions, DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting) solutions, and the underlying system-on-chip (SoC) devices and receiver chips.
Key customers for the company’s products include consumer electronic, automotive entertainment and PDA/mobile phone manufacturers such as Bang & Olufsen, Cambridge Audio, Goodmans, Grundig, Hitachi, Ministry of Sound, Philips, PURE Digital, Roberts Radio, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and TEAC. Frontier Silicon has won a number of awards and its products have also enabled award-winning consumer products. The company’s awards include the Fabless Semiconductor Association’s start-up to watch award, PricewaterhouseCoopers hottest technology company of 2004 award, the World Economic Forum’s technology pioneers to watch 2005, and the Tornado T100 award for one of the best-performing and innovative high-tech private companies. For more information visit http://www.frontier-silicon.com
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