London-based RadioScape is branching out from digital radio into mobile TV with offerings based on the latest Blackfin processor family from Analog Devices (ADI).
“When we looked at the platform we support today, which is the Texas Instruments DSP platform, that’s obviously a very good start and it’s in a lot of different places,” said John Hall, RadioScape’s CEO.
“But we decided several months ago that we wanted to spread our wings in terms of offering our software radio solutions on at least one additional DSP platform, and potentially others in the future.”
Blackfin will allow RadioScape to integrate the DAB baseband decoder and the audio video decoder onto a single platform giving savings in cost and power.
“When we looked at the ADI platform we thought we could do a lot more than just turn it into a radio,” said Hall. “We thought we can put all the processing software on the same device and actually do away with a chip. With the ADI product we’re able to do everything on one DSP.”
ADI has already been showing the offering to customers. “In our view it really changes the game on how you design a mobile TV subsystem,” said Hall.
RadioScape is in discussions with a “third major partner” and Hall said it had “made it clear to the semiconductor industry that our doors are open to talk about porting our technology to new platforms in future”.
Whereas the firm manufactures and sells digital radio subsystems, for mobile TV it will be licensing its technology.