From large screens in sports arenas to laptops in homes and offices, high-definition TV signals are becoming a norm. Now, several technologies have come together to make reception of high-quality digital TV signals a reality in mobile hand-held devices, such as cell phones, PDAs and other multimedia convergence products, as well. Thus, besides talking as they walk leisurely in a mall, cell phone users will soon be checking highlights of interesting sporting events or watching prime time news or sending a captured clip from a show to a friend or a relative's cell phone via wireless internet.

Until now, the feasibility of such support has been limited by several key factors — power consumption, performance and size. While some attempts at addressing this market have adapted an existing set-top box approach to this challenging environment, a constantly changing receiver environment makes the task tougher as the quality of the received signal depends on several factors like the receiver's ability to manage adjacent-channel rejection, low signal-to-noise ratios and Doppler compensation.

New digital video broadcast-hand-held (DVB-H) standard coupled with advances in multiband tuner ICs, demodulator devices and antenna diversity technology is making it possible to extend the performance of digital broadcast TV to mobile devices. Based on the international DVB-H networks, and multiband tuners, manufacturers are building handsets for Europe, the United States or both markets using the same tuner and common software. In Europe, the mobile broadcast TV will use UHF band of 470 MHz to 890 MHz, while the U.S. operators will deploy the L-band (1670 MHz to 1675 MHz). According to the suppliers, mobile broadcast TV service is expected to begin deployment in select major markets in the United States later this year.

In fact, in the United States, Crown Castle International, a leading independent owner and operator of shared wireless infrastructures, has announced that its Crown Castle Mobile Media subsidiary plans to build and operate a dedicated digital network for broadcasting digital TV content to hand-held devices using 5 MHz of unencumbered nationwide spectrum and DVB-H. In Europe, trial networks have been established in Berlin (Germany), Helsinki (Finland) and Oxford (England) with further trials expected in other cities in France, Germany and Australia. Full commercial launches are anticipated in 2006 and ready for widespread deployment in 2007, according to analysts.

As service providers continue to seek out ways to offer greater differentiated services, mobile TV on any networked device such as cell phones, PDAs, mobile PCs and even in automobiles is emerging as a lucrative service. Market research firm Electronics.ca, Publications predicted earlier this year that if mobile TV is priced and packaged correctly, there could be up to 270 million subscribers worldwide with TV functionality on their mobile phones by 2009.

The DVB-H standard, an extension to the digital video broadcast terrestrial (DVB-T) standard, is an industry specification that enables the simultaneous transmission of multiple TV, radio and video channels to mobile hand-held devices. It supports the transmission of digital TV content and data to hand-held devices, which have unique power, screen size, mobility and reliability demands. In essence, the DVB-H standard introduces features and modifications to the DVB-T standard, among them time slicing and new forward error correction techniques, to enable TV reception in mobile, battery-powered devices. Other standards in contention with DVB-H include terrestrial-digital mobile broadcast (T-DMB).

To address these demands, lately several suppliers of integrated high-performance silicon tuners have emerged on the scene. They are tapping advances in RF CMOS and silicon germanium biCMOS process technologies to achieve stringent performance and integration requirements of these applications. Key players amongst them include Athena Semiconductors, DiBcom, Freescale Semiconductor, Microtune Inc., Philips, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments Inc. While some are exploring the idea of combining a tuner with demodulator on chip, others are partnering with demodulator chip developers to move mobile TV applications to the next level of form factor and affordability.

Mobile phones and broadcast TV are two popular consumer markets. Is this confluence a road to disruptive applications?