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Microtune has introduced two ICs that should significantly boost the performance of TV sets and automotive radios. First, its MT3141 MicroCeiver and RF-to-baseband chip combines the functions of an RF tuner, analog TV demodulator, IF filters, and amplifiers in a 6- by 6-mm, 40-pin quad flat no-lead (QFN) package. This chip targets next-generation TV sets, set-top boxes, and home gateways.

Microtune’s MT3511 is designed to implement software-defined radio automotive entertainment systems. It simplifies the design and improves performance of virtually any auto radio technology, including AM, FM, HD, DRM, and weather FM.

Specifically, the MT3141 was designed to exceed the RF performance requirements of all worldwide analog and digital broadcast and cable TV standards. It can handle NTSC, PAL, and SECAM analog signals, U.S. ATSC digital, European DVB-T and DVB-T2, China CTTB (DTMB, DMB-T), ISDB-T, cable QAM digital, and DVB-C.

The MT3141 covers the 44-MHz to 1-GHz range. An integral low-noise amplifier boosts the input, and the mixer selects either a low IF or an IF in the 4- to 57-MHz range. The channel select synthesizer is on board. An internal analog-to-digital converter (ADC) digitizes the mixer output, and a baseband processor generates filtered sound IF and baseband CVBS video. No baluns or surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters are required. The typical noise figure is 6 dB, the video to noise ratio is better than 60 dB, and receiver sensitivity for ATSC signals is –88 dBm.

Microtune’s MT3511 RF-to-digital converter is designed for software-defined automotive radios (see the figure). The chip, which is essentially the RF front end or tuner for new automotive infotainment systems, features a low-noise amplifier, IQ mixers, complete fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) synthesizer, and a self-correcting, self-calibrating 16-bit ADC.

The MT3511’s output data rate is 1.92 Mbits/s. Automatic data synchronization for FM phase diversity applications is provided. Demodulation is handled by an external DSP or multimedia processor that can be programmed to any of the various radio standards, including analog AM and FM, digital HD Radio, Digital Radio Mondial (DRM), and FM weather radio.

The MT3141 is priced in the $2.00 range for high volume. Prices for the MT3511 are in the $3.50 range for 100,000-unit quantities. Both chips are sampling now.