The market for mobile TV is potentially huge, with millions of units predicted to ship in the next few years. Semiconductor giants and startups are eyeing the market for chips to receiver broadcast TV on mobile phones.
A flexible solution for all the different standards â“ from DVB-H, T-DMB and IP DAB in Europe, to DVB-H and MediaFLO in the US and T-DMB, IP DAB and other standards in Asia â“ is desirable to allow handset makers to have one platform that they can easily modify for the different markets. While DVB-H commercial services are now in Italy and Germany and Spain will follow next year, and the Lobster service starting in the UK from virgin Mobile and BT Movio using IP-DAB, there are also issues of spectrum allocation across Europe.
But there are other ways to provide mobile TV. IP Wireless in Chippenham has been developing a system based on the TDMA technology that allows operators to use their existing spectrum to provide broadcast TV services to handsets via an extra modem in the PC or handset. That technology is rolling out across Japan this month and is being trialled by Orange, Vodafone and O2 in Bristol.
Vodafone also is looking to use its 3G network for video rather than broadcast technologies, and mainly for business reasons. It needs to recoup its investment in 3G spectrum, but needs new technologies in handsets outside of the mobile TV chips, and want to link video to its other broadband and Internet services, both on the handset and in the home.
Reconfigurable receiver
For mobile broadcast TV, Mirics Semiconductor has developed a reconfigurable radio chip that can handle all mobile TV format. The MSI001 is initially aimed at consumer digital DAB+FM radio receivers and video on mobile phones. As it is reconfigurable, it changes the receiver architecture â“ from direct conversion to superhetereodyne to dual conversion superhet â“ depending on the frequency and the protocol.
The BiCMOS chip is being made by Jazz Semiconductor in a 0.35µm process, and so can be priced at US$3.50 in low volumes.
Sony has been at the forefront of chip design and has developed its own DVB-H chips for Sony-Ericsson and the open market.
Frontier Semiconductor has launched the industry’s first single chip that handles both major mobile TV standards in both the baseband and the RF, ahead Texas Instruments and starts such as Siano and Newport Media.
Frontier is the major supplier of T-DMB chips into Korea, and its Paradiso single chip handles both the DVB-H and T-DMB standards using the UCC digital signal processor from Imagination Technologies. This is scheduled for mass production in 2008.
DibCom has also launched a new version of its digital terrestrial DVB-T chip, and sees cost optimisation for different markets, rather than a single chip solution, as more important.
US startup Newport Media is also planning a single chip in 2008 for DVB-H and T-DMB, as is another start up, Siano, while TI is upgrading its Hollywood single chip to add T-DMB to DVB-H.
