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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Frontier aims for £20 digital radio

Verona all in one tuner for WorldDMB Profile 1 radios 

Frontier Silicon has developed an all-in-one tuner that it says will enable digital radios under £20, vital to support the switch-off of analogue radio services in the next few years. The Verona tuner has been designed to remove every aspect of cost while maintaining good quality, long battery life and excellent receiver sensitivity.  Frontier Silicon has managed to achieve this by utilizing its world leading Kino 3 baseband chip that includes enough on-chip memory to demodulate and decode all three WorldDMB standards in one.  Further cost savings have been achieved by reducing the module size to just 48 x 28 mm.  This amounts to a 65 percent size reduction resulting in the world’s smallest FM, DAB, DAB+, DMB-Radio combined module.
Radio manufacturers are able to enjoy the economy-of-scales afforded by low cost DAB, DAB+, DMB-Radio (collectively known as WorldDMB Profile 1) as markets around the world begin the migration from FM to digital radio. 

France is expected to begin digital migration this year with all receivers requiring a DMB-Radio tuner by 2013.  Italy and Germany are also scheduled to launch DAB+ this year joining established markets in Switzerland and Australia.

Anthony Sethill, CEO of Frontier Silicon, added, “Verona enables receiver manufacturers and retailers to make radios even more affordable, which will drive mass consumer uptake and provide the catalyst for digital radio migration across Europe during the next five years.”

Verona includes all interfaces necessary for a fully functional radio, needing only power supply, display, keypad, audio amplifier and speaker to complete a product.  A complete hardware and software reference design (called Venus) is available providing receiver manufacturers with a turn-key design for a mains and battery powered kitchen radio. Verona enters mass production this month with products appearing on the shelves from July.
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