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Frontier Silicon announces Chorus digital radio and audio processor

World's first single chip device for digital radio and data services

London, UK — January 17, 2002: Frontier Silicon, the new fabless semiconductor business whose core products include system-on-chip (SoC) devices for Digital TV, Digital Radio and other emerging consumer multimedia products, today announced the availability of the Frontier Chorus™ FS1010, a single-chip DAB/Audio processor, based on the licensed META™ DBX-1 design from Digital One and Imagination Technologies. Production quantities of the new processor are planned for March 2002, leading to sub £100 digital radios by the middle of 2002.

The Frontier Chorus™ FS1010 is a cost-effective, low power multimedia DSP chip, which integrates all the necessary functionality and interfaces for a range of DAB-enabled consumer systems on the same chip. The advanced capabilities of the device and its low cost will enable wide availability of portable, and feature-rich digital radios and DAB-enabled multi-function audio systems at new consumer price points.

The Frontier Chorus FS1010 is the first processor to utilise the revolutionary META multi-threaded DSP core and DAB technologies developed by Imagination Technologies' Metagence and Ensigma Technologies divisions. The META processor architecture provides multiple real-time programming contexts (threads) that can operate independently and concurrently. The critical advantage of the META architecture is that it makes it possible to run several real-time tasks on a single processor, rather than resorting to inefficient multi-DSP solutions. This enables devices that can integrate DAB, Consumer Audio, Digital Hi-Fi, Speech, Advanced User Interfaces, and Communication on a single chip.

Technical information

The Frontier Silicon Chorus FS1010 processor is a super-integrated low-power system on a chip (SoC), which delivers a highly flexible and efficient solution for multimedia and communication applications such as digital radios, portable music players, and home/in-car audio and multimedia. The FS1010 uses the revolutionary multi-threaded META DSP processor core from Imagination Technologies. It integrates on-chip RAM & caches, DAB coprocessors, and a comprehensive range of peripherals. In addition it has extensive applications software and development support.

The multi-threaded architecture of the META core allows the FS1010 to execute multiple real-time multimedia and communication-based DSP tasks, as well as general-purpose activities such as the user interfacing and data storage/filing needed in multimedia applications. On-chip coprocessors coupled with real-time-aware hardware thread-scheduling enable the FS1010 to run multiple applications including the concurrent processing of digital radio and other multimedia tasks. For example, an FS1010 running at 150 MHz needs less than 30% of its processing capacity to execute the demodulation, decoding, protocol stack and user interface tasks for a digital radio.

The processing power and programmability of the FS1010 enables it to be used for demanding application-specific functions such as surround sound decoding, audio encoding or advanced data service decoding. It also supports secure music and other key-based applications, using RSA to transfer cryptographic keys or other encrypted data held in external memory to internal memory whilst ensuring that the data can only be read by the intended application code.

FS1010 uses dynamic and static power management techniques including fully-static design, clock-gating and inactive period state minimisation for low power usage without compromising performance. The processor clock is generated by a PLL that can be reprogrammed dynamically, allowing power consumption to be minimized for each application.

Representatives

Frontier Silicon has already appointed sales and technical support representatives including Ultimate Marketing (UK), Techno Rep (France) and Iovox (Korea) and will shortly appoint representatives for Hong Kong, Japan, Germany, Scandinavia, and Benelux.

Ends

About Digital One

Digital One is the world's leading DAB digital radio broadcaster and operates the UK's only national commercial digital multiplex, broadcasting 10 stations to 80 per cent of the UK population. The company is 63 per cent owned by the UK's leading commercial radio group, GWR Group Plc (owner of Classic FM), and 37 per cent by NTL, the UK's leading broadband communications company. See: www.digitalone.co.uk

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc is an IP licensing company that develops, licenses and supplies market-leading 2D/3D graphics, digital video, Digital Signal Processing, audio and speech technologies, tools and diagnostic products for consumer entertainment and PC markets. Imagination Technologies Group plc has its corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom and is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE:IMG). See: www.imgtec.com

About Frontier Silicon

Operating at the frontiers of the digital revolution Frontier Silicon is a fabless semiconductor business whose core products include system-on-chip (SoC) devices for Digital TV, Digital Radio and other emerging consumer multimedia products. Frontier's key customers include consumer electronic, automotive entertainment and PDA/mobile phone manufacturers.