Satellite Technology Feature Article
October 10, 2008
Frontier Silicon Unveils Advanced Unified Receiver Module
By Arvind Arora, TMCnet Contributor
Frontier Silicon, a supplier of digital radio technology, has announced to launch its latest generation of low-cost, low-power unified receiver modules.
The new module, named Venice 7 consists of all interfaces necessary for a fully functional radio, needing only power supply, display, keypad, audio amplifier and speakers to complete a product.
It enables the lowest power consumption deploying Frontier Silicon’s new Kino 3 baseband processor chip, which utilizes the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing process technology.
The chip supports digital audio broadcasting (DAB), DAB+, digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB-A) and frequency modulation (FM) without the need for additional cost of external SDRAM memory.
The emerging digital radio markets, including Australia, France, Germany and Italy, are planning major digital radio launches during the next 12 months, while the DAB market is growing in the UK. These will all get boosted by the Venice 7 module.
Depending on the end product application and price point, Venice 7 can drive a number of different display options when configured in master mode.
Running Frontier’s enhanced 4-line user interfaces (UI), it can output a 128x64 full graphics display, and also a highly cost-competitive ultra-bright starburst display with a single line UI. Radio manufactures get a high degree of product differentiation through UI customization by full flexibility provided by the software.
In slave mode, the module can be configured under the control of an external microprocessor for more complex audio systems such as AV receivers. Full-featured software application interface and host reference software have been provided for seamless system integration in this case.
The software supports various features such as multi-language support, iPod docking with secondary display for artist and track name, power saving features, and an in-the-field firmware upgrade facility via USB. The newly introduced Jupiter 7 production-ready reference platform is also equipped with a fully qualified radio platform including iPod docking support.
To facilitate the rapid growth of digital radio across Europe, WorldDMB provided receiver manufactures with the economies-of-scale that result from a single Europe-wide marketplace.
WorldDMB is an international non-governmental organization whose objective is to promote the awareness, adoption and implementation of Eureka 147 based services worldwide.
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Arvind Arora is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Arvind's articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Michelle Robart
