MegaChips and Silicon Motion Co-Develop World's Smallest and Lowest Power ISDB-T Mobile TV Tuner-Demodulator SoC

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (Nasdaq:SIMO) (“the Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops and markets semiconductor solutions for multimedia consumer electronics, today announced that MegaChips Corporation (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6875) (“MegaChips”), a leading fabless system LSI company in Japan, and the Company have jointly developed the world’s smallest and lowest power consumption ISDB-T mobile TV tuner-demodulator SoC.

MegaChips has been offering ISDB-T demodulator solutions since One-Seg digital terrestrial mobile TV service was first launched in Japan in April 2006. Silicon Motion markets its mobile TV products under the “FCI” brand and introduced its first S-DMB silicon tuner in February 2005 and T-DMB silicon tuner in February 2006, around when Korea started offering digital satellite and terrestrial mobile TV broadcasts.

“Our ISDB-T SoC is the product of a strong and synergistic partnership,” said Dr. Sangwoo Han, General Manager and Senior Vice President of Silicon Motion’s Mobile Communications products. “MegaChips is one of the top suppliers of mobile TV baseband ICs to the Japanese handset industry and Silicon Motion’s Mobile Communications business, which markets under the ‘FCI’ brand, is one of Korea’s leading suppliers of mobile TV silicon tuners. We are proud to be pooling our high performance silicon tuner technologies with MegaChips’ best-in-class demodulator solutions to develop the world’s smallest and lowest power consumption SoC for Japan, Brazil, and other ISDB-T markets.”

Dr. Yukihiro Ukai, President and CEO, of MegaChips added, “Japan and Korea are the world’s leading markets in terms of mobile TV adoption and technology development. About two-thirds of all new mobile phones sold in Japan can already receive digital terrestrial free-to-air mobile TV signals based on the ISDB-T standard, which is a technology that is popularly known as ‘One-Seg’ in Japan. Korea is the second largest mobile TV market in the world after Japan, with mobile TV adoption rates approaching the high levels in Japan. Korea and Japan are two markets where mobile TV usage is increasingly ubiquitous, whether on the street, in subways, or automobiles. Some of the best mobile TV tuner technologies in the world are being developed in Korea. Silicon Motion’s ‘FCI’ products are among the most technologically advanced in the world, and we are therefore proud to be pooling technologies with Silicon Motion to bring innovation to our customers.”

A single chip solution best meets the requirement of mobile device OEMs in terms of reduced package size, component count, and power consumption. Key product features include:

• The world’s smallest size ISDB-T SoC (3.02mm x 3.02mm x 0.35mm WLCSP), realized by integrating RF tuner and OFDM demodulation parts in one IC;
• A built-in LNA circuit that improves receiver sensitivity and reduces package size and the number of components;
• Unique demodulator and tuner circuit technologies that reduce power consumption to as low as 55mW during operation; and
• Availability of two types of packages: A WLCSP (0.4mm ball pitch) package, which is ideal for high-density miniature modules, and a BGA package (0.5mm ball pitch), which is preferred for board mounted applications.

Sample shipments of both packages are scheduled for 1Q 2009.