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Mirics Semiconductor is developing mobile TV and radio solutions for smart-phone applications by migrating its FlexiTV platform to the ARM Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 applications processors. The company also is launching a range of mobile TV and radio applications for products targeted by the Intel Atom CPU platform. According to Mirics, these moves will enable low-cost, region-independent mobile TV and radio reception on media-rich phones, netbooks, and mobile Internet devices. 

FlexiTV is designed to leverage host processor-based software demodulation to bring global broadcast reception at a cost structure that’s friendly to consumer electronics devices. The FlexiTV product portfolio originally targeted notebook platforms powered by dual-core x86 CPUs, and the expansion to cover Atom-based technology is in line with the company’s objective to offer the broadest range of mobile TV and radio solutions to device manufacturers and system integrators.

Also, FlexiTV supports the Japanese ISDB-T OneSeg and Korean T-DMB mobile TV standards on PC devices featuring the Atom CPU and on mobile devices featuring the ARM processors. According to ABI research, total OneSeg device shipments in 2010 will exceed 33 million, while T-DMB will see at least 12 million units. Meanwhile, the market for smart phones with mobile TV and radio solutions could exceed 200 million units in 2010, further underscoring the significant commercial opportunity for FlexiTV.

In addition to mobile TV support, Mirics has announced Atom-based software demodulation support for Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) and FM radio. In the case of ISDB-T OneSeg, software demodulation running on an N270 Atom processor consumes a CPU load of only 20%, maintaining critical battery life in mobile products. Mirics will sample FlexiTV solutions targeting the Atom to select partners during the third quarter of 2009 with formal release to production in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Mirics CEO Simon Atkinson calls the ARM Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 “the de-facto standard embedded applications processors for cell phones enhanced with multimedia functionality,” making the architecture a natural choice for the company to target with FlexiTV. Mirics expects to sample FlexiTV solutions based on the Cortex applications processors to lead customers in the fourth quarter of 2009 with production ready in early 2010.