UK fabless semiconductor developer Frontier Silicon is
positioning itself in the market for the roll out of TV broadcast
to the mobile phone in Korea this summer.
The London-based firm claims around 70 per cent of the market for
digital audio broadcast (DAB) chips and is looking to take an early
lead in the developing multimedia broadcast to the mobile
market.
"Our intention is to be a leading player. We are expanding our
design and engineering teams for this," said Anthony Sethill, CEO
and founder of Frontier Silicon. Plans to set up another design
centre somewhere in Europe are being put in place by Frontier.
Details are expected at the end of March.
A mobile handset TV service will kick off in Seoul in June with 20
channels and Frontier is expecting a demand for three quarter of a
million units this year, rising to 14 million in five years
time.
The firm's chips have already been chosen by Samsung for handsets
enabled for broadcast services. Sethill claims Samsung will have
market dominance with around 80 per cent share of devices enabled
for the service.
Trials in other countries are also to begin this year, with Germany
and China to test the service. Sethill estimates that by 2008 it
will be shipping the majority of its chips for use in digital media
broadcast devices.
"The current generation of chips will allow about four hours
continuous viewing. We can get this to 12 hours with lower power
devices," said Sethill.
The firm will offer chips for the two standards: terrestrial
digital multimedia broadcast: (TDMB) and digital video handheld
(DVH). "We think the two standards will operate alongside each
other," said Sethill.
Frontier last week raised $28m in funding, most of which will
support the move into the mobile TV market.
www.frontier-silicon.com