Israeli mobile TV chip maker Siano Mobile Silicon, which has been blazing a trail in China and to some extent Japan, has opened new Chinese offices in Shenzhen, and brought to market a new ultra low power multi-protocol device which supports just DVB-T, ISDB-T and T-DMB.
The SMS1140 chip will be launched at the IIC Exhibition in Shenzhen this week, aimed at helping local Chinese ODMs build mobile TV into handsets an other devices for the export markets in Japan, Korea and Europe.
Interestingly the European standard for mobile TV ‘ DVB-H ‘ has been left out of the stack. Chinese ODM manufactures actually build most of the portable and mobile DVB-T devices being delivered in Europe, and a good portion of the T-DMB and ISDB-T devices as well.
Siano reckons that its main aim is to eat into the bill of materials of the device because ODMs are under such competitive pricing pressure.
By carving out the DVB-H logic on its existing designs, Siano has brought the price and power consumption down, and given there are no major DVB-H chip outlets right now, this suits the Chinese ODMS.
The new lower cost package is actually a little bigger and thicker than the existing Siano SMS1130 and SMS1150 products, but Siano says that this provides the best performance, lowest power, and lowest cost in the market – for this particular combination of technologies. We reckon that Siano might have dropped as much as a third off the price of the chip compared to its older chips, which support more protocols.
Between Japan and Brazil (ISDB-T), Korea and South China (T-DMB), and Taiwan, Australia and Europe (DVB-T) ‘ this will put Siano in reach of a chip market, which ships multiple tens of millions of units per year, all with one device, in markets which are still growing.
Siano has already taken market leadership in China in the CMMB market and this looks like a clear way of attacking most of the rest of the world. Siano says the SMS1140 chip is aimed at PC makers, navigational device manufacturers and other entertainment device suppliers including handsets.
Alon Ironi, CEO of Siano, commented, “So far the reality in portable TV has been such that device makers either had to compromise on cost and get a quality receiver chip, or compromise on quality and pay less. The SMS1140 combines both state-of-the-art reception quality of the 3 most popular DTV technologies worldwide, at a ground breaking price, opening up new commercial opportunities for mobile TV within the consumer electronics industry.”