Coolness. An all new, low power (110 mW), tuner to baseband, single chip receiver for HD Radio. I think what makes this significant is not just that HD Radio can now go portable, but also that it will now be available, presumably, on the cheap. Just what it will take to make HD Radio ubiquitous. The product brief is here: http://www.siport.com/products/briefs/SP1010PBV01.pdf Oh! And "wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles," compatible also with with the Euro DAB and T-DMB schemes, when these are in the upper VHF bands (no evidence of L Band operation). Not to mention compatible with analog AM/FM. Even the weather band. What else can anyone ask for? Curiously, the AM tuner, per se, would be a separate module. The single chip does not include AM tuning. Bert ----------------------------------- HD Radio chip marks SiPort's recovery Junko Yoshida (03/10/2009 12:01 AM EDT) URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=215800740 NEW YORK - SiPort, a fabless chip vendor based in Santa Clara, Calif., has re-emerged this week, three months after a horrific tragedy in which three SiPort executives, including its CEO, were fatally shot by a former employee. SiPort is heralding its return to normalcy by rolling out a low-power, single-chip HD Radio solution, now in mass production at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. using its 130-nm RF CMOS process technology. SiPort's new chip, already certified by iBiquity last August, will allow consumers to listen to free-over-the-air HD Radio available in more than 1,800 radio stations in the United States. The IC will be designed into a new generation of MP3 players scheduled for launch by OEMs in the second half of this year, according to SiPort. The company's single-chip HD Radio receiver chip is integrated with RF radio, demodulator, memory and two embedded CPUs " ARC's 32-bit CPU cores. "It draws only 110 milliwatts," noted Sunder Velamuri, vice president of marketing at SiPort. "It's ideal for portable media players, portable navigation devices, and ultimately, mobile handsets," he added. SiPort's approach -- zoomed in on the portable device market -- marks a sharp contrast to solutions offered by its competitors such as NXP Semiconductors and Texas Instruments. The competitors' chip sets typically consume 2 to 2.5 watts, because their focus is on the automotive market, rather than the power-conscious portable device market. Meanwhile, Samsung, SiPort's closest competitor in the portable HD Radio market, has been already supplying an HD Radio chip set since last year. But SiPort's single-chip solution consumes only 25 percent of the power used by the nearest competitor's chip, claimed Velamuri. Targeting its HD Radio chip for the portable media player market is a path yet to be trodden by the industry, if not a gamble. Stephanie Ethier, senior analyst at In-Stat, believes that "HD radio adoption will take off in automotive first and foremost." She noted that survey data shows that most Americans listen to radio in their cars more often than any other setting. Richard Robinson, principal analyst at iSuppli Corp, agreed. "Currently, the main growth area (and market) for HD radio is in OEM Automotive and After market solutions," he said. Robinson, however, added that the market will grow in areas such as personal navigation devices and handsets. Scant market predictions on HD Radio in portable players may be explained, as Robinson said, because "this [HD Radio in portable devices] is currently either not available or very early stages of development." iSuppli, overall, sees the future of HD Radio as "very positive," according to Robinson, particularly for two reasons. HD Radio signal has "the ability to carry sideband data information that can be used for services such as traffic, news, weather and gas prices, etc." Although similar 'service' capability is available in FM radio data radio system, it is "very limited because of low data rate," he added. Another important factor is, "HD Radio is free for users," unlike satellite radio which is a subscription-based service. In-Stat estimated that approximately 1.5 million units of HD Radio receivers were shipped in 2008. That number will reach 2.5 million units in 2009, said In-Stat's Ethier, with the market growing to 8 million units in 2013. Aftermath of the tragedy After the shooting happened in mid-November, SiPort went through a setback of several months, Velamuri acknowledged. However, remarkably, SiPort has kept its workforce " 36 employees " intact. "Nobody at SiPort has left the company," said Velamuri. "It's been a process of recovery and bonding. We've found a common purpose and we are a lot closer now." The story of SiPort's resilience is also a story about Silicon Valley. "People say that Silicon Valley has no heart, but that's not true," said Velamuri. He cited an outpouring of support from the industry and community. For example, Intel Corp., one of SiPort's backers, sent out its senior human resources people to SiPort right after the tragedy, offering grief counseling to SiPort employees, while engaged in a daily conference call with SiPort, Velamuri said. The landlord also found a new property, allowed the SiPort move to the new facility right away, without forcing them to break the lease which SiPort had signed just before the tragedy. Similarly, police were very helpful, said Velamuri. After the tragedy, Aiman Kabakibo, the company founder, has stepped in to head up SiPort. All materials on this site Copyright (c) 2009 TechInsights, a Division of United Business Media LLC. 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