Analysis
Highly integrated FM transmitter family
Silicon Laboratories Inc has announced a highly integrated FM transmitter family offering superior audio performance in a very small 3 x 3 x 0.55 20-pin QFN package. By reducing the bill of materials and power consumption of existing solutions, the Si471x FM transmitter family allows customers to cost effectively add wireless FM audio playback capability to any portable media device including cell phones, MP3/digital media players, navigation/GPS devices and satellite radios.
The “Our FM tuner and FM transmitter broadcast audio products work hand in hand to enable portable device manufacturers to cost effectively build high quality audio capabilities into their products,” said Tyson Tuttle, vice president of Silicon Laboratories. “The FM transmitter family offers unmatched audio quality in an extremely small, highly integrated package, allowing customers to add audio features without complicating their designs.”
The Si471x FM transmitter family offers customers a fully tested solution that speeds time-to-market and simplifies manufacturing. It requires only two external components and is implemented in 15 mm2 of printed circuit board area. Current consumption is about one-third less than competing solutions resulting in a 33 percent increase in battery life. In addition, programmable power scaling allows customers to comply with both US FCC and pending European Union transmitted power regulations with a single implementation.
The FM transmitter function easily coexists with active cellular networks as well as GPS, WLAN, Bluetooth and other wireless transmitters due to integrated on-chip filtering, reducing noise and harmonics. Complete programmability enables one hardware solution to ship globally.