Samsung Electronics has shaken up the mobile TV chipset market with the introduction of a multi-standard channel decoder and multi-band RF tuner.
Europe is an important target market for the multi-standard decoder (S3C4F31) and multi-band RF tuner (S5M8602) chipset which supports multi digital mobile TV standards including DVB-H/T, DAB-IP, ISDB-T, and terrestrial DMB.
It is one of the first commercial chips to be fabbed on a 65nm process.
“Although a new market, we see high growth potential in mobile TV applications," said Yiwan Wong, v-p, marketing for semiconductors at Samsung Electronics.
With a range of technical standards being proposed for mobile TV, manufacturers increasingly see a multi-standard chip as the best option. So
how many mobile TV standards do we need?
Europe is in the middle of an
industry-wide debate about the benefits and dangers of adopting a single standard. Some observers now suggest that it will be unpractical to impose a single standard and they suggest that the market should decide on the rollout of mobile TV standards in Europe.
The multi-standard channel decoder is fully compliant to DVB-H/T, T-DMB, DAB, DAB-IP, and ISDB-T 1 segment standards. The multi-band RF tuner is based on a low IF architecture to compliment the conventional zero IF. It is also a general purpose tuner that supports UHF, VHF and L-band commonly used in Europe and the US.
According to market research firm Strategic Analytics the mobile TV market is expected to reach 12 million units in 2007 and 130 million units by 2011 at a compounded annual growth rate of 67 per cent.
Samsung’s new multi-standard channel decoder (S3C4F31) and multi-band RF tuner (S5M8602) chipset is now sampling with mass production slated for the fourth quarter of 2007.