Frontier Silicon and SigmaTel Partner to Deliver Lowest Cost DAB, FM and Fully Featured MP3 Player5 September 2006
London, 4 September 2006: Frontier Silicon, the market leader in semiconductor solutions for mobile TV and digital radio, has partnered with SigmaTel, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGTL), a leader in mixed-signal multimedia semiconductors, to produce Atlas 2, the lowest cost, ready to manufacture combined DAB (digital audio broadcasting), FM and fully-featured MP3 player platform available today. The platform brings together Frontier Silicon's Naples FS 2011 miniature tri-band DAB/FM digital radio module and SigmaTel's STMP3500 series MP3 processor and portable audio system-on-chip (SoC) to provide consumer electronics manufacturers with a customisable ready to manufacture solution for combined DAB/FM/MP3 handheld players with voice recording capability.
Anthony Sethill, CEO of Frontier Silicon, said, «This is a significant new addition for the personal media player (PMP) market, since we can now enable DAB manufacturers to add MP3 functionality, as well as those making MP3 players to add DAB digital radio listening functions on their devices. Until now there wasn't a readily available platform solution that could be easily customised by manufacturers and quickly deployed into mass production.»
Ron Edgerton, chairman, CEO and president of SigmaTel, added, «Our partnership has worked very well and our technologies complement each other perfectly to provide the market a low cost and compact ready-to-use solution powered by SigmaTel's market-leading system-on-chip solution and Frontier Silicon's expertise in delivering DAB radio platforms.»
The Naples FS 2011 module within Atlas 2 is a compact, low-power, high-performance DAB and FM OEM module designed for use in battery-powered products. Naples enables personal DAB digital radio and Internet audio devices, and incorporates Frontier Silicon's Apollo RF front-end and Chorus DAB baseband processor.
SigmaTel's STMP3500 portable audio SoCs are highly-integrated, battery-optimised ICs designed to decode compressed audio files such as MP3 files, using high performance audio codec, DSP, USB interface, and general purpose I/O. The SoC solution provides high quality audio playback for portable devices such as MP3 flash players, language learners, and jukeboxes, and enable market-leading benefits like low BOM (bill-of-materials) costs, high speed USB and 50 hours of life on a single AA battery. The SigmaTel SoC also supports MP3 and WMA audio format algorithms as well as security in WMA DRM (digital rights management).
The Atlas 2 platform that combines these two solutions from Frontier Silicon and SigmaTel can be configured to customer requirements, including optional hardware FM, selectable memory size, keyboard and LCD options. The PCB (printed circuit board) can be powered by a lithium ion/polymer battery back, or via a mini-B type-B connector, and provides on-board charging and power management. It features a full MMI interface implemented on either a 1.1 inch single-colour OLED or backlit graphics FSTN display. A separate customisable keyboard PCB provides navigation and short cut keys to menus and functions. The headphone antenna acts as the Band-II (FM) and Band-III antenna. File storage can be to internal Flash or to SD card.
Atlas 2 is available now.
Ends
Editor's notes:
About Frontier Silicon
Frontier Silicon is the leading supplier of digital and RF integrated circuits and modules for mobile TV and DAB digital radio products. Frontier is supplying solutions for leading products such as the Samsung B2300 and SGH-P900 T-DMB mobile phones and has over 80 percent market share for DAB receiver solutions. Frontier Silicon's products include solutions for DAB digital radio, T-DMB and DAB-IP and a multi-standard receiver solution for mobile TV reception combining DVB-H, T-DMB and DAB-IP.
Customers include Bang & Olufsen, Denon, Grundig, JVC, Philips, PURE Digital, Roberts Radio, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and TEAC. Frontier Silicon has operations in UK, Ireland, China, South Korea and Japan. For more information, visit www.frontier-silicon.com.
Frontier Silicon uses Meta(TM) and UCC(TM) intellectual property from Imagination Technologies.
About SigmaTel Inc.
SigmaTel, Inc. a fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Austin, Texas, designs, develops, and markets proprietary, analogue intensive, mixed-signal ICs for a variety of digital multimedia products in the consumer electronics and computing markets, including portable compressed audio players, such as MP3 players, digital video cameras, multi-function peripheral products, digital televisions, and set-top boxes. SigmaTel provides complete, system-level solutions that include highly integrated ICs, customisable firmware and software, software development tools, reference designs, and applications support. The company's focus is on providing system-level solutions that enable customers to rapidly introduce and offer electronic products that are small, light-weight, power-efficient, reliable, and cost-effective. SigmaTel is ISO 9001:2000 certified and is committed to providing customers with high-performance, quality products along with superior customer service. For more information, visit www.sigmatel.com.
Contact details:
Jonathan Colbourne, Marketing and PR manager
Tel: +44 (0) 1923 474220
Fax: +44 (0)1923 202251
Source: emediawire
All trademarks and copyrighted information contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
Related Articles
|
