- 12 June 2006 -

Microtune single-chip TV tuners have expanded RF functions

Single-chip multi-function capable products are the ultimate goal in electronics. They are also the most challenging to bring to commercial fruition. One of the latest trends is bringing TV to handsets. In Europe last week for the kick-off of commercial mobile TV services, and for the introduction of handsets using its tuner, Microtune, Inc., President and CEO James A. Fontaine revealed the company's product strategy to meet the needs of worldwide mobile/portable TV manufacturers for future radio frequency electronics.
"Leveraging our patented MicroTuner architecture, coupled with our market leadership in silicon TV tuner-chips and digital TV expertise, our product plan is to develop new multi-standard, poly-band, universal TV tuners that can help drive the development of the global market for mobile and portable TV," said Mr Fontaine.

"We expect the commercial rollouts for the 2006 FIFA World Cup to serve as an excellent proving ground for mobile TV services. They will rigorously test the entire broadcasting system, while spurring interest, demand and deployments. We are proud that our DVB-H tuner technology is deployed in the LG Electronics' LG-U900 handsets that will be used in the Italian Hutchison launch. As additional mobile TV networks are introduced worldwide, we believe that multiple mobile TV standards, as with other digital TV standards, will co-exist across regions or countries. We intend to support these multiple standards with our advanced tuner technology.

"Our goal is to provide high-performance tuners to as wide a market as possible, while permitting our customers to cost effectively develop multi-market end products. In the process, we expect to solidify a leadership position as the preferred RF supplier to major consumer electronics manufacturers."

According to Mr Fontaine, Microtune plans to expand upon its existing ATSC, DVB-T and DVB-H-based products to develop universal tuners. They will be engineered as miniature single chips that support multiple mobile TV standards, while also easily enabling compact dual-tuner configurations for personal video recording and diversity applications. Anticipating the convergence of digital TV broadcast, multimedia and connectivity as part of the evolution of handsets and portable devices, the company also plans to investigate strategies to bridge its current tuner portfolio with expanded RF functions.

As the first initiative in its strategy, Microtune plans to expand its Mobile MicroTuner product family for the DVB-T, DVB-H, T-DMB, ISDB-T and DMB-TH specifications. When implemented into consumer multimedia devices, the new tuners will enable users to access a variety of content -- digital TV broadcasts, mobile TV broadcasts, digital radio and teletext -- while roaming across countries that offer differing standards.

Combining standards with expanded RF functions, Microtune expects that its future tuners will permit manufacturers to develop products for global markets without the added expense and duplication of effort to design standard- or feature-specific devices. They will help to accelerate a customer's time-to-market and reduce costly development investments, while maintaining the very high level of RF performance and silicon integration associated with current Microtune products.

As examples of Microtune's successful multi-standard approach, Mr Fontaine cited the recently announced Mobile MicroTuner MT2266, a dual-standard (DVB-T and DVB-H), dual-band (UHF and VHF-Band III) chip that receives and tunes both digital terrestrial TV and mobile broadcast TV signals. Microtune's first Mobile MicroTuner product, the MT2260, was the industry's first multi-band (UHF/L-Band) DVB-H tuner to be introduced, sampled and put into production. This chip is currently deployed in the LG-U900 mobile phone.

Complementing its product direction, the company also plans to sell its tuners as wafer-level chip-scale packages for system-in-chip packages, making its technology available in multiple form factors. Microtune's chip-scale packaged tuners enable greater miniaturization, a key requirement anticipated in future of mobile TV products.
The jury is still out as to the commercial viability of watching TV on your cellphone. A big impetus for other new technologies such as high-definition screens has been sporting events such as the World Cup. Perhaps this will be a driving force in handset TV. Various parties are anticipating huge revenues from such services so the pressure is on the chip companies to deliver the goods.

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