Silicon Laboratories Introduces Single Chip FM Tuner

AUSTIN, Texas – Silicon Laboratories (NASDAQ:SLAB) has announced the Si470x FM tuner family, the industry's smallest, most integrated FM broadcast radio tuners delivering the entire FM tuner from antenna input to audio output in 100 percent CMOS. Using a digital architecture, the Si470x FM tuners significantly improve performance while reducing component count by more than 90 percent and board space by more than 60 percent. The Si470x is ideal for cellular phones, stand-alone FM radios, PCs, MP3 players, PDAs, USB FM receivers and a variety of portable audio devices where low power consumption and a small footprint are essential.

The Si4700 FM broadcast radio tuner integrates selectivity filtering, automatic gain control, frequency synthesizer and audio processing. While traditional solutions require more than 30 components, the highly integrated Si4700 requires only one external supply bypass capacitor and can be implemented in less than 20 mm² board space. Silicon Laboratories also offers the Si4701 incorporating a digital pre-processor for the European Radio Data System (RDS) and the U.S. Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS), enabling data such as the station ID and song name to be displayed to the user. Silicon Laboratories' Si4700 and Si4701 are fully integrated and tested FM tuners resulting in faster time-to-market and improved manufacturability.

"Silicon Laboratories is the pioneer in RF integration. We have leveraged this expertise and core technology across the company to expand the wireless product portfolio to include a compact, high-performance, easy-to-use FM tuner family that addresses the entire handset market as well as the diverse and fast-growing portable audio market," said Ed Healy, vice president of Silicon Laboratories. "The Si470x tuner family makes it easy and cost effective for our customers to add FM radio as a standard feature to virtually any application."

While alternate solutions use analog architectures, the Si470x tuners leverage Silicon Laboratories' patented MCU embedded processing technology and low-IF digital architecture used in its market-leading Aero® RF transceivers for GSM/GPRS handsets. Silicon Laboratories' digital architecture enables the highest level of selectivity and sensitivity performance resulting in reduced interference and improved reception. In addition, Silicon Laboratories' advanced digital audio processing results in optimum sound quality superior to that of other portable radio tuners.

"With portable devices, MP3 players and handsets increasingly integrating FM radios, the market for FM tuners is expected to double in size over the next three years," said Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts. "Silicon Laboratories' innovative digital architecture raises the bar in performance for the myriad of portable devices requiring compact, quality FM tuners."

Pricing and Availability

The Si4700 and Si4701 are available in a compact 4 x 4 mm 24-pin quad flat no-lead (QFN) package. Pricing for the Si4700 begins at $3.00 in quantities of 10K. Pricing for the Si4701, which supports RDS/RBDS, begins at $3.45 in quantities of 10K. Volume production is expected in the fourth quarter of 2005. An evaluation board is available for $150.