Frontier-Silicon's new DAB/DAB+ receiver modules

Watford-based company Frontier-Silicon is the DAB chip/module manufacturer that produces around 75% of all the DAB receiver modules that power DAB receivers sold in the UK market, and it has brought out three new receiver modules, called the Venice 5, Venice 6 and Capri, which will support DAB+ once they've finished implementing it (although there may be DAB-only versions -- see below for details). 

Venice 5 module

Frontier-Silicon has said that it wants to include DAB+ on all of the Venice 5 modules it ships, but whether this happens will depend on the code size of the software, and it will only know this once it has finished implementing DAB+ by Q3 this year.

If the difference in software code size results in the code for DAB+ requiring a larger flash memory chip (memory chips are only produced in certain sizes) to store the code then a DAB-only version and a DAB/DAB+ version of the module will be produced, with the DAB-only version being slightly cheaper. The DAB-only version would then be targeted at entry-level DAB receivers, with the DAB/DAB+ verion being targeted at the mid- and high-end receiver market -- thankfully, the mid- and high-end DAB receiver market accounts for a relatively high percentage of overall sales, e.g. Pure Digital is the market leader with 32.4% of the DAB portable radio market, and nearly all of its products are in the mid- to high-end categories.

Frontier-Silicon has implemented the Reed-Solomon error correction decoding in hardware to reduce power consumption, so the only difference in software code size (to speak of) will be due to the addition of the AAC/AAC+ decoder.

However, just to put this issue into perspective: flash memory chips cost around 50 cents to $1 per chip when bought in high volume, and a doubling of the memory size (the amount of memory on a chip will be an integer power of 2, e.g. the Venice 5 supports flash memory sizes of 4 Mbit, 8 Mbit, 16 Mbit and 32 Mbit) increases the price by about 40%, which is what would be needed to accomodate the AAC/AAC+ decoder if the code size exceeds the amount for DAB-only. So after taking the exchange rate into account, an increase in price of 40% works out to be 20 - 40 cents, which is only about 11 to 22 pence!

If it does transpire that two different versions of the module will be needed, Frontier-Silicon said that it will become uneconomic to produce the DAB-only version once DAB+ sales take off in other countries, and all Venice 5 modules will then ship with DAB+ as standard.

Frontier-Silicon also wants the Venice 5 module to support audio-only on T-DMB if France decides to adopt T-DMB for digital radio, but the same issue of code size and flash memory sizes will apply. The Venice 5 would also output the whole MPEG-2 TS stream for a T-DMB service to allow decoding of the video and/or data, if required.

The Venice 5 module will use Frontier-Silicon's Kino 2 chip, which has been optimised for low power.

Venice 6 module

The Venice 6 module will support DAB/DAB+ and Wi-Fi Internet radio, and all Venice 6 modules will support DAB+ as standard. The Venice 6 module will begin shipping in products in Q3 this year, once Frontier-Silicon has finished implementing the software for DAB+ -- the time when Frontier-Silicon was projected to finish implementing DAB+ was brought forward by a few months due to the DAB+ standard being ratified in February rather than in the summer as was originally expected.

The Venice 6 module will also support audio-only for T-DMB if France adopts T-DMB for digital radio, and it will output the whole MPEG-2 TS stream for a T-DMB service to allow decoding of the video and/or data, if required.

The Venice 6 module will use Frontier-Silicon's new Chorus 2i chip.

Capri module

There's not as much information available about the Capri module as for the Venice 5 & 6 modules, but it will use the Kino 2 receiver chip, so it will be capable of receiving DAB+. The Capri module is targeted at handheld products.