Microtune Surpasses 100 Million TV Tuner Chips Shipped

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Company, Continuing a Tradition of RF Silicon Innovation, is the Worldwide Market Leader in Single-Chip Silicon TV Tuners

PLANO, Texas — Microtune, Inc.® (NASDAQ: TUNE) today announced it has achieved a major corporate milestone with the shipment of more than 100 million silicon TV tuners. Reaching this landmark–in a dramatic ramp that has doubled cumulative product shipments in approximately 16 months–Microtune remains the world’s leading provider of single-chip silicon TV tuners, a technology that the Company introduced in 1999.

By inventing the world’s first high-performance broadband TV tuner on an integrated circuit, Microtune ushered in the age of radio frequency (RF) miniaturization. The Company pioneered state-of-the-art enabling technology that now makes digital TV signal reception possible, anywhere, on any class or size of consumer electronics device.

“Shipping our 100-millionth tuner is a significant accomplishment, but we are equally proud of the valued, long-term relationships with customers that have enabled us to celebrate this achievement. Our goal is to offer a diversified portfolio of innovative, performance-leading products that help our worldwide customers maintain strong market positions and succeed in their businesses,” said Mr. James A. Fontaine, Microtune President and CEO.

“Since we launched the first silicon TV tuner chip in 1999, we have continued a tradition of industry leadership by introducing a series of other RF technology innovations–the industry’s highest-performance silicon tuner, the first 1-GHz tuner chip, and the first silicon-based architecture for multi-tuner set-top boxes. Our new DOCSIS 3.0 wideband tuner and low-power universal tuner are current examples of first-to-market products that are helping to support next-generation, feature-rich consumer electronics,” Mr. Fontaine added.

Mr. Fontaine further reflects on the business significance of Microtune’s 100-millionth tuner shipment in an interview available online. Additionally, Albert H. (Bud) Taddiken, Microtune’s Chief Operating Officer and a key contributor to the realization of the company’s breakthrough silicon tuner, offers a technology perspective on the impact of the tuner integrated circuit to today’s and to future applications.

Critical Role Of The Tuner

With its tuners, Microtune offers cornerstone RF technology for digital TV, cable TV or automotive entertainment products that ensures the quality of the user experience–pristine, stable pictures, crystal clear sound, or fast, complete data delivery.

The MicroTuner™ chip transformed the tuner from a dollar-sized module to a microcircuit, providing for both miniature size and solid-state reliability. Across the last ten generations of its silicon TV tuner products, Microtune has continually improved their performance, reduced power consumption, integrated more-and-more functions onto the chips, and significantly decreased the cost.

Microtune’s latest tiny TV tuner chips, now less than 1/4″ inch square, are optimized to deliver the best, most reliable signal reception performance across diverse devices or applications. They have been deployed in the products of brand-leading customers from premium widescreen TVs, data and voice cable modems, PCs and set-top boxes to cell phones and car TV systems. Today, 80 U.S. patents protect Microtune’s RF integrated-circuit technology and other inventions.

Microtune shipped its 100-millionth tuner on June 30, 2008, shipping cumulatively by the end of second quarter this year approximately one hundred million sixty four thousand tuners. Previously, on February 6, 2007, Microtune announced the shipment of its fifty-millionth MicroTuner™ chip.

More: Microtune White Papers