Broadcasting

May 17, 2006
Microtune enables broadcast on portable devices

UNITED STATES -- Microtune's new silicon tuner brings TV options to portable multimedia platforms by supporting DVB-T and DVB-H broadcasts, and with a mere 350mWatts of power consumption. Microtune is a silicon and subsystems company that designs and markets radio frequency (RF) solutions for consumer and automotive electronics markets worldwide.

Extending its family of ultra low-power tuners, Microtune® recently introduced a new dual-standard, dual-band tuner chip that receives and tunes digital terrestrial TV and mobile broadcast TV signals for portable applications.

When implemented into consumer multimedia devices, the new Mobile MicroTuner MT2266 enables users to access a variety of content digital TV broadcasts, mobile TV broadcasts, digital radio and tele-text across the digital video broadcast-terrestrial (DVB-T) and digital video broadcast-handheld (DVB-H) standards. With power consumption of only 350 mW, which is half that of conventional DVB-T tuners, the MT2266 has minimal impact on the battery life of portable platforms.

Original equipment and original design manufacturers can take advantage of this tuner to deliver dual-standard TV capabilities and multimedia features on products as diverse as notebook PCs, USB sticks, PCI Express cards, portable DVB-T receivers, Personal digital assistants (PDAs) and personal media players. The tuner, which supports both the UHF and VHF (Band III) frequency bands, is also ideal for diversity systems, where low power is a critical consideration.

James A. Fontaine, president and CEO, Microtune, said: "Our MicroTuner family of high-performance tuners enables digital TV across multiple devices, platforms and standards, and our new MT2266 tuner is an important product addition in meeting the specific performance and power requirements of portable platforms. Our new tuner enables manufacturers to develop cost-optimised portable products that give consumers flexible TV viewing and multimedia options and that deliver superior reception quality and reliability. At the same time, they can add this capability without the fear of rapidly draining the battery."

Based on Microtune's silicon tuner architecture, patented technology and power management techniques, the MT2266 is a direct-conversion, single-chip broadband TV tuner engineered to give manufacturers design flexibility and low operating power, at low cost, without compromising high performance. The MT2266 is optimised for UHF and VHF Band III frequencies with support for the DVB-T and DVB-H standards. It is engineered to deliver robust performance based on the NorDig Unified and MBRAI specifications.

Measuring only 6x6-square millimeters in a 40-pin QFN package, the MT2266 contains all active circuitry required to implement a complete RF to base band function. As with other Microtune tuner products, the MT2266 is characterised by a high level of integration that minimises the need for external parts, including the requirement for an external low-noise amplifier, IF saw filters, and transformer balloon. This architecture reduces total solution cost and the total power budget, while supporting the significantly reduced footprint designs of leading portable device manufacturers. The MT2266 operates from a 2.7V power supply and consumes as little as 350mW, with multiple power down modes.