3GSM: Siano releases multi-standard mobile TV chip

Siano Mobile Silicon said today it is unveiling the industry's first multi-standard digital TV chipset at the 3GSM World Congress next week, creating a multi-band and technology receiver and demodulator that will allow vendors to design individual multimedia handsets for multiple broadcast networks.

Siano's new SMS1000 chipset supports Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld (DVB-H), Digital Video Broadcast-TV (DVB-T), Terrestrial-Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB) and Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) standards.

Siano product marketing manager Dror Meiri said many carriers are investigating multi-standard formats for mobile TV services, for instance launching broad-interest programming over a national DVB-H network but distributing local content over T-DMB systems. Multi-national carriers are also looking to extend their TV capabilities across international borders, allowing customers to roam onto networks powered by different technologies, Meiri said.

For vendors, however, a multi-standard chip would allow them to achieve greater economies of scale even if it might drive the cost of the handset up incrementally. Instead of manufacturing a separate handset for each technology, they could make one version of each TV-enabled handheld, which fits in nicely with the European handset business model, which largely allows customers to pick their phones and service providers separately. Most industry experts have projected that DVB-H chipsets will eventually add about $10 to the cost of any given handset. Meiri said that its multi-standard chip is competitive with other vendors' single-standard silicon, coming in under that $10 per handset guideline.

PDA manufacturer Compal has incorporated pre-commercial versions of the SMS1000 into a Pocket PC device it will be demonstrating at 3GSM.

Siano, an Israeli company, isn't just targeting Europe with the new product though. Both Asia and North America are looking into multiple technologies. In Canada, DAB and DVB-H networks are on the drawing boards and Crown Castle has deployed the first U.S. DVB-H service, called Modeo. Meiri said, however, that Siano has no plans to support Qualcomm's Forward Link Only (FLO) technology.

"Qualcomm charges quite a bit of money for licensing," Meiri said. "As of now [FLO] is not an open standard. I think the implications of that are clear."