Releases > 2005 >

Frontier Silicon launches world's most advanced mobile digital television chip solution

London, 14 February 2005: With the launch of two new products specially designed for receiving terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (T-DMB) services on mobile phone handsets, Frontier Silicon - the leading fabless manufacturer of semiconductors for digital radio, TV and mobile TV products - now offers a complete RF and baseband chip solution for mobile digital television. The combination of the world's lowest power and smallest footprint RF chip (Apollo) and the lowest power consumption T-DMB baseband chip (Kino) will allow handset manufacturers to rapidly enable mobile operators and broadcasters to offer digital broadcast services to consumers. The chipset solution will make its world debut with a live (T-DMB) demonstration on Frontier Silicon's stand (hall 5, stand M53) at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, this week (14th-17th February 2005).

Anthony Sethill, CEO of Frontier Silicon, said, "This year we will start to see the convergence of the mobile communications and broadcasting industries. I believe the addition of low power TV tuners to mobile handsets will be the next killer application to follow the success of cameras in mobile handsets, and will open up significant new revenue opportunities for content providers. To date, we pioneered and have established ourselves as market leaders in DAB digital radio chips to the consumer and automotive electronics industry; by launching Apollo and Kino we intend to become the leading supplier of digital TV chips to mobile phone manufacturers."

Apollo is based on the new technology platform announced last week at ISSCC, the semiconductor industry's foremost annual conference where engineers reveal details of cutting edge circuit technology. The Kino digital baseband chip is the lowest power and smallest footprint dedicated T-DMB processor currently available, and requires no external memory. Sethill comments, "The two chips reduce external component count, reducing power consumption, reducing silicon area and therefore cost. This is important for mobile handsets which are enabled with T-DMB."

Sethill adds, "With services due to start in Korea this year and trials under way in Germany and the USA, mobile TV will emerge as a major global business opportunity. Frontier Silicon is at the forefront of bringing complete solutions based on advanced low power chips to the radio and TV broadcast markets, and we are excited at the prospect of assisting the rapid growth of mobile digital television."

Ends

Editor's notes: About Frontier Silicon

Details of the two chips can be found in separate press releases.

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.