Frontier Silicon is planning to release a unified digital radio receiver module to work with all existing Band 3 and L-band digital radio standards for Europe and Asia. The new receiver addresses the market need for a solution that supports all Eureka-147 based standards, including DAB and DAB+ and DMB-Audio.

Speaking at the Broadcast Asia conference in Singapore this week in the 'Radio Renaissance' session, Frontier Silicon's CEO, Anthony Sethill, commented, "Globally, the market has now entered a phase where flexibility is required to address the diverse standards requirements of each country - for example, the UK is driven by enhanced audio content delivered through DAB, whereas rich media content based on DMB is a priority for France, and Australia requires bandwidth optimization using DAB+. With a unified receiver solution available to enable these Eureka-147 implementations in their products, manufacturers will be strongly placed to address broadcasters' needs in each country, regardless of any variant chosen, with a single low-cost module."

Commenting on interoperability, Quentin Howard, president of WorldDMB, said, "WorldDMB is working with the EBU, EICTA, and with the industry in Germany, France and the UK to create a consensus for standardized receivers. Frontier's announcement of a receiver module supporting all the audio standards within Eureka 147 DAB, DAB+ and DMB is a positive step towards enabling a pan-European digital radio market."

Frontier's unified digital radio module is based on the Venice 5.1 receiver unveiled earlier this year in Australia. According to Frontier, the new module is a low cost receiver for DMB-Audio, DAB, DAB+ and FM-RDS, and is a drop-in replacement, both electrically and mechanically, for existing products designed using the company's Venice 5 module range.

The supplier said that the unified digital radio module will include all interfaces necessary for a fully-functional product, needing only the power supply, display, keypad, audio amplifier and speakers to complete a radio. It will start sampling in the third quarter with production by the year-end.

www.frontier-silicon.com

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