IC delivers best-in-class performance for car radios

27th August 2014

Nat Bowers

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Datasheet

Claimed to provide best-in-class AM/FM and HD Radio/DAB/DMB digital radio performance for demanding car radio systems, the Si4790x tuner IC family has been announced by Silicon Labs. The automotive tuner ICs deliver exceptional flexibility and scalability for Tier 1 automotive infotainment suppliers and aftermarket car radio makers worldwide.

Utilising the company's patented digital low-IF architecture and RF in CMOS technology, Silicon Labs has also claimed that the Si4790x family is the industry’s most advanced automotive tuner IC. The devices benefit from the superior linearity of the integrated RF front-end and a comprehensive AM/FM firmware running on a high-performance on-chip radio DSP. This provides sensitivity in weak signal environments, selectivity in the presence of blockers and immunity to multipath fading and distortion. The Si4790x family supports all worldwide broadcast radio bands including AM/FM, longwave (LW), shortwave (SW), NOAA weather band, FM RDS decoding and AM/FM HD Radio and DAB reception (Band-III and L-band).

Featuring a high level of single-chip integration, the tuner ICs enable developers to significantly reduce board space, the external bill of materials and overall system cost. By integrating active loop-through buffers for all radio bands, the tuners eliminate the need for external active splitters and greatly simplify the front-end RF design to further reduce costs. The Si4790x family uses the same application programming interface, allowing infotainment system developers to reuse the same software across different product lines and market segments.

James Stansberry, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Internet of Things and broadcast products, Silicon Labs, commented: “The Si4790x tuner ICs set a new standard of excellence for car broadcast reception and RF performance. Designed to be a truly global automotive radio solution, the Si4790x family supports all leading broadcast standards worldwide, and our scalable architecture enables infotainment system suppliers to leverage their investments across multiple product lines ranging from entry-level car radios to cutting-edge multi-tuner, multi-antenna radios for premium vehicles.”

Silicon Labs also offers the Si4791-3T1A-EVB evaluation kit for $1495 to help accelerate development of Si4790x-based systems. The Si4790x automotive tuner ICs are available now for sampling.