Company Enlists Conexant, LiteOn, and Excelpoint to Deliver New Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth®, FM Tuner, and Digital Audio Broadcasting Wireless Solutions
SigmaTel, Inc. announced its wireless solutions now include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support on its portable multimedia SoCs. SigmaTel worked with industry leaders including Conexant Systems, Inc., LiteOn and Excelpoint to expand its wireless technology portfolio to include multiple facets: FM Tuner, DAB, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
“As an industry leader, SigmaTel is offering Wi-Fi connectivity as a strategic feature for multimedia players,” said Phil Pompa, Interim Chief Executive Officer of SigmaTel. “We have worked with Conexant, a leading Wi-Fi semiconductor provider, to offer a complete Wi-Fi reference solution that includes our STMP3600 portable SoC product line. Our goal is to allow our customers to expand their multimedia capabilities for the consumer electronics market.”
Wi-Fi technology enables multiple consumer applications including media sharing and downloading without connecting to a PC, Internet radio streaming, web browsing, text messaging and VoIP. SigmaTel’s SDK (Software Development Kit) is bundled with Conexant’s low-power, wireless networking technology to provide a complete Wi-Fi solution.
“Demand for Wi-Fi enabled products such as media players is on the rise, however consumers aren’t willing to sacrifice performance or battery life,” said Chee Kwan, senior vice president and general manager of Conexant’s Wireless Networking business. “We specifically designed our chip for battery-sensitive hand-held products, and our collaboration with SigmaTel is taking this a step further. Our jointly developed reference design provides manufacturers with a low-power, feature-rich solution that allows them to shorten product design-cycles, and more quickly capitalize on this emerging market opportunity.”
Excelpoint Systems (a subsidiary of Excelpoint Technology Ltd), a design house for SigmaTel, offers a complete, ready-to-market, reference design for portable Wi-Fi enabled multimedia solution.
“In collaboration with SigmaTel, Excelpoint provides a one-stop, ready-to-manufacture package that includes schematics, Gerber data, firmware with QA test report, wireless qualification testing support, and production test software,” said Mr. Albert Phuay, chairman and group CEO of Excelpoint Technology Ltd. “We can offer leading OEM/ODMs the competitive advantage to produce an innovative wireless digital media product within two months.”
Bluetooth technology adoption in the consumer electronics market continues to grow as more handsets, headsets, and other accessories incorporate wireless PAN capabilities. SigmaTel offers Bluetooth support within its SDK, enabling new features such as streaming stereo audio and file transfers for portable multimedia players.
“In cooperation with LiteOn, we’re now introducing our STMP3600 reference platform with Bluetooth connectivity,” said Mr. Pompa. Bluetooth technology enables connectivity to the growing market of wireless Bluetooth accessories and peripherals.”
“The synergy of Lite-On and SigmaTel will move Bluetooth products to a new stage,” said Jane Chiu, Product Marketing Manger at Lite-On. “Lite-On provides and ‘one-stop shopping’ service to add our customers value in today’s competitive market.”
SigmaTel delivers FM Tuner functionality with the STFM1000, a companion processor for SigmaTel’s STMP3500 and STMP3600 families of SoC portable multimedia solutions. The STFM1000 provides an optimized radio architecture and support for U.S., Europe, Japan and Asia FM bands.
In an agreement with Frontier Silicon, SigmaTel offers a DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) fully featured MP3 player reference platform. The platform brings together Frontier Silicon’s Naples FS 2011 miniature tri-band DAB/FM digital radio module and SigmaTel’s STMP3500 series SoC to provide consumer electronics manufacturers with a customizable, ready to manufacture solution for combined DAB/FM/MP3 handheld players with voice recording capability.
For technology demonstrations, please visit CES SigmaTel booth #35763.
For more information on SigmaTel, please visit: www.sigmatel.com.
