To overcome the fragmentation of the mobile broadcast receiver market, London, UK-based RF and mixed-signal fabless start-up Mirics Semiconductor has readied a poly-band tuner for mobile digital broadcast reception. In essence, it is a universal broadcast receiver that enables designers of mobile phones, portable media players and PDAs to easily add mobile broadcast reception to support any global standard. Labeled MSI001, it offers low power consumption and high performance at a low cost.

According to Mirics, the 0.35 µm SiGe BiCMOS-based MSI001 chip is the most technically advanced product of its type, capable of receiving all broadcast standards announced to date, including DVB-H, T-DMB, ISDB-T, DAB-IP, MediaFlo, DAB, DRM and even AM/FM. Mirics also designed the MSI001 to be configured for the reception of other standards, or unknown future standards, without any cost or performance penalty. An example of this flexibility is the impending release of the Chinese MDTV standards. The MSI001 was designed before these standards were announced, yet it supports them through a configuration option, said Ralph Weir, vice president of marketing at Mirics.

The device provides coverage for all major broadcast bands ranging from 100 kHz to 1.9 GHz (covering LW/MW/SW, L-band and VHF bands II, III, and UHF bands IV and V). The developer claims that it offers the lowest power consumption of any tuner announced to date – for example, it uses a mere 46 mA in continuous DVB-H operation in the L-Band.

Mirics has a strong silicon development team with RF technology, wireless/algorithms, IP, silicon delivery and system architecture experience, and the skills to lead the mobile broadcast receiver market. The company has the backing of Europe's largest early-stage technology fund, Pond Venture Partners.

Simon Atkinson, CEO of Mirics said, “The mobile broadcast market is extremely fragmented by multiple standards and band allocations. To date, companies have typically focused on supporting one or two of the multitude of standards. This fragmentation has been identified as the principal bottleneck to the wider adoption of mobile broadcast technologies; the small volumes available for any handset supporting a single standard do not justify its development.”

Added Atkinson, “The multi-standard TV tuner has been heralded as the ‘holy grail ambition’ for mobile handset design and is a key development target for our competitors for the next 12 months. Unlike our competitors, Mirics is delivering this technology today, in the form of working silicon, which is available to sample now. MSI001 supports all current digital terrestrial broadcast standards, and analog radio, across all terrestrial broadcast bands. It also has the lowest cost implementation and highest performance of any mobile broadcast receiver currently available.”

Sampling now, it is expected to go into production in first quarter of 2007. Jazz Semiconductor will be the foundry for this part. It is priced at  $3.50, in 10,000 units.