iBiquity Digital announced momentum in advancing the infrastructure for HD Radio designs.
"These next generation chipsets, modules and software development kits from Samsung and other major technology companies will enable a much wider range of low cost radio receivers in new form factors, with new features," said Bob Struble, iBiquity CEO.
As of this week, both Samsung and SiPort are now in general availability of next-generation HD Radio chipsets, shipping to dozens of receiver makers covering both the automotive and home/office markets. In January, Samsung disclosed sampling of a new generation of HD Radio chipsets to select customers.
Both the chipsets are enabling lower-power HD Radio receiver designs as well as smaller form-factors. These mobile devices will span both automotive and non-automotive applications. The Samsung chipset features a single-chip RF-IF peripheral processor, a baseband processor, and achieves the "no filter" concept. It supports a rich feature set, including conditional access, store & replay, traffic & navigation. For its part, SiPort’s single-chip solution has been designed specifically for low-power, high-performance portables outside of the automotive market such as portable GPS devices. TSMC is fabricating the chipset.
Sanyo is also shipping a single-chip digital radio tuner/digital signal processor – a fundamental component to HD Radio receiver designs. The new tuner/DSP similarly is enabling more compact and lower-cost designs of high-performance car radios and audio processing systems.
In addition to hardware advances, iBiquity has been focused on moving software design forward. SDKs across several applications are now available; a critical reference design for iTunes Tagging support; and a comprehensive testing, inspection and certification suite are also speeding next-generation designs to market.
SamBoo InfoTech, Analog & Digital Soft Company, and KRS Electronics – are providing software-development kit support for specific applications, ranging from head units, to personal navigation devices, to iPod docks, and automotive head-ends, mini-shelf systems and AV receivers. The comprehensive support spans host microprocessor and user-interface design as well as advanced feature prototyping.
Also supporting advanced feature sets is an end-to-end iTunes Tagging reference design now available from iBiquity. The design defines HD Radio receivers with iPod docking stations and iTunes Tagging support and is now available to all licensees of both Apple Made-for-iPod (MFi) and iBiquity.
