Betting Chips On Mobile TV
Growth attracts vendors with power-saving Silicon
by Randy Barrett -- Multichannel News, 2/24/2008 7:00:00 PM
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There are high hopes for the worldwide mobile-TV market and chip makers are gearing up to take advantage of the new growth opportunity.
In early February, Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom announced two 65-nanometer mobile TV chips that include both a tuner and a demodulator (receiver).
Company officials say the BCM2940 and BCM2930 chips require 40% less power, use 30% less space and offer improved radio-frequency reception.
| Chip Mobility | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| These silicon manufacturers make mobile-TV chips: | |||
| Firm | Functions | Standards | Unit Cost |
| SOURCES: The companies |
|||
| Broadcom | Receiver/tuner | DVB-H/DVB-T | $4-$6 |
| STMicro | Receiver/3D/Audio | DVB-H | $37 |
| Texas Instruments | Receiver/tuner | DVB-H/ISDB-T | $10 |
| NXP | Video display | N.A. | $4-$5 |
| Qualcomm | Receiver/modem | MediaFLO | N.A. |
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For users, that means mobile TVs with twice the battery life — up to three hours — and much better reception deep indoors, said Dino Bekis, director of new markets for Broadcom’s Wireless Connectivity Group.
“These new mobile-TV receivers, coupled with Broadcom’s handset capabilities and evolving user applications, enable a whole new class of products that will drive significant revenue growth,” said Bekis in a statement. The cost per chip: $4 to $6.
Broadcom is aiming specifically at the two leading European mobile-TV standards — Digital Video Broadcast-H (handheld) and DVB-T (terrestrial) — and its new chips work with both.
But the worldwide standards situation is still in flux. South Korea has adopted the Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) system and the United States has MediaFLO, a standard created by Qualcomm. Add to the mix the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) digital-TV standard being used by all U.S. terrestrial broadcasters for full-size sets, and the muddle is complete.
To make the matters more interesting, Qualcomm also has its own chip sets that support the MediaFLO standard. Last September, it began shipping commercial samples of the Universal Broadcast Modem solution that supports both the DVB-H standard and the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial regime used in Japan.
The situation has slowed market adoption of mobile TV and prompted caution among original-equipment manufacturers. “We need to see which standard wins over the long term,” said Texas Instruments senior director of strategic marketing and industry relations Yoram Solomon.
As a result, handset makers won’t be putting the new chips into mobile phones until late 2008 or early 2009. The good news for original equipment manufacturers and consumers is that all the competition is driving chip prices down to less than $10 per unit, and some — like Broadcom — are approaching $5 apiece.
“The $5 price point is important: that is, when a function migrates from the high-end to the mid-tier handset, and hits the 'hockey stick’ inflection in its take rate,” said ABI Research Analyst Alan Varghese in a 2006 report. “At that stage, large numbers of consumers will join the early adopters in choosing mobile TV handsets.”
That still remains to be seen. ABI Research currently predicts worldwide mobile TV subscriber levels will reach 462 million by 2012, driven in large part by expansion of 3G networks and flat-rate plans. The subscriber base in 2007 was estimated at 14 million, according to figures from eMarketer.
The uncertainty hasn’t stopped chipmakers from forging ahead. In early 2006, TI was the first to offer a combined tuner and demodulator on a single chip for mobile TVs. The DTV1000 “Hollywood Chip” supports the DVB-H standard. A sister chip, the DTV1001 talks to the ISDB-T framework favored in Japan. Later in 2006, TI added personal video recorder and picture-in-picture capabilities to the Hollywood chip, which costs under $10 each.
“The user experience is getting better,” said Solomon. “The focus is more on what you do with content once it is in the [mobile] phone.”
Another competitor is also adding capabilities to its video chips. STMicroelectronics has unveiled a 65-nm chip set combining an application processor with a companion audio and power-management chip. The Stn8820 combo package allows smart phones to record and share high-definition video clips, receive TV, playback music and deliver 3D gaming, says the company. But the chips come at a steeper price — $37 each in quantities of 10,000.
The clear value proposition, said STMicro Marketing Director Andre Bertrand, is that his company’s chips include operating code. Of competitors such as Broadcom, he asks: “What is the software proposal coming with that?”
San Jose, Calif.-based NXP has largely phased out of the TV-tuner chip business, and is now focusing on improving mobile displays. “We see a healthy market for video and multimedia, which requires image improvement at the receiver side,” said Kees Joosse, general manager of business development, for NXP’s Mobile & Personal Business Unit.
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NXP makes the SAA8500 chip, which offers advanced video display algorithms with low-energy requirements. “In all cases, the display-backlight is the biggest power drain for the battery, limiting the talk time. Our chip does reduce the power drain [by] 40% and improves the image-quality on the screen,” said Joosse. The price: $4 to $5 per unit.
The Chinese mobile-TV market is another huge opportunity — but also a question mark — for U.S. chip manufacturers. While there are potentially hundreds of millions of customers, China is currently operating under its own standard, called STiMi.
Early last year, Analog Devices moved closer to that market by opening a design lab with Legend Silicon to focus specifically on mobile TV. The companies said they would focus on “providing complete front-end solutions, from the antenna through the tuner to the demodulator.”
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