Micronas announced immediate availability of a reference design for a miniature USB 2.0 DVB-T receiver. The design, which Micronas calls "MicStickD" consists of Micronas DRX 3975D COFDM demodulator, a Microtune Microtuner MT2060 DTV tuner and a Cypress EZ-USB FX2LP controller.
Micronas director of home media products Kai Scheffer said that his company was pleased to be partnering with Microtune, as their MT2060 TV tuner chip would enable the development of innovative PC TV products. "Microtune's RF expertise combines with the state-of-the-art noise crunching technology of our demodulator to deliver excellent picture quality in the electronically noise-challenged environment of PCs, mobile phones, PDAs, and the like," he said.
Microtune broadband marketing manager Dirk Bilgram added, "Micronas' new silicon-based solution is designed to transform the PC into a virtual TV, while also enabling digital radio, teletext and TV recording to the hard drive."
The Micronas announcement stated that the advanced digital filtering techniques, combined with the A/D converter and PLL in the DRX 3975D would ensure "crisp viewing" even under challenging adjacent channel conditions. The DRX 3975D also has a pre-SAW IF sense input, which enables "fully autonomous and stable RF-AGC control of the MT2060" and eliminates the need for additional RF-AGC circuitry.
According to the announcement, the MicStickD reference design can fit in a USB device measuring only 2.2 cm by 6.2 cm (0.9" by 2.5") and can be built for around US$20 in quantities of 100,000.
More information is available in the Micronas news release MicStick D Enables Watching and Controlling Live DVB-T Broadcasts on Desktop and Notebook PCs and at www.micronas.com.
