KONKA selects NXP silicon tuner for its analogue and digital TVs

Thursday, July 21st, 2011
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NXP Semiconductors Teams With KONKA for First High-Performance Silicon Tuner-Powered Television Receiver Solution in China

SHANGHAI, China — NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) announced that KONKA Group Co., Ltd., one of the leading Chinese TV set manufacturers in Shenzhen, has selected NXP’s TDA18273 silicon tuner solution for its analog and digital television receivers. KONKA is the first TV set manufacturer in China to use the TDA18273 silicon tuner in a television receiver solution design and bring it to market on a large scale.

The TDA18273 hybrid silicon tuner solution makes a significant break with traditional can tuner designs, which use up to 150 components, many of which require manual alignment during manufacturing. In contrast, the TDA18273 single-chip silicon tuner solution features a high level of integration, incorporating oscillators, IF selectivity and wide band gain control, and eliminating the need for external components such as low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters and baluns. By reducing the number of peripheral components, the TDA18273 silicon tuner solution enables higher system reliability in a very small form factor that facilitates the design of ultra-slim, flat panel TVs. Further, the TDA18273 is manufactured under NXP’s zero-defect program which enables manufacturers to simplify product assembly and supply-chain management.

“Traditional TV tuners have reached a stage of maturity in size and price, making further technological advances difficult. To overcome this, we are continuously looking at highly integrated solutions for more attractive system costs. Silicon tuners integrating the tuner function and channel filters are one such building block. NXP silicon tuner technology is helping us to design products that meet and exceed current market requirements,” said Guo Bin, deputy director of the Institute of New Technology, KONKA Group Co., Ltd.

“With silicon tuners poised to replace traditional MOPLL-based can tuners in all applications, the NXP TDA18273 addresses the growing global demand for highly integrated, low-power and ultra-slim TV architectures. NXP’s silicon tuners speed up the design-in process, save production costs and improve performance. They also save space in multi-tuner systems and reduce energy requirements,” said Wu Guohui, director of marketing, TV front-end and multimedia interface products for NXP Semiconductors in Greater China. “The collaboration between NXP Semiconductors and KONKA is an excellent start, which will encourage more traditional analog and digital TV set manufacturers to adopt silicon tuners, and boost the technical advancement of the industry as a whole.”

As a multi-standard solution covering worldwide standards in analog and digital reception, the NXP TDA18273 also offers superior all-around performance and flexibility in comparison to traditional can tuners. The NXP silicon tuner solution allows the tuner function to be put directly on the main board, whereas traditional can tuners make encapsulation in a module mandatory. Overall, silicon tuner applications require only one-third the size of the can tuner, making multiple tuner applications possible in a very small footprint.