The chipset comes complete with up to 4 multi-standard RF ICs and a base-band processing IC running the full software stack, featuring low current consumption and minimized electromagnetic interference.
The chipset delivers an outstanding real-time performance without bottlenecks in the baseband processing, ST said in the press release.
It supports the DAB family of standards (DAB/DAB+/DMB-A), the Digital Radio Mondiale open broadcasting standard, as well as the HD Radio™ technology, when combined with an external co-processor.
Volume production of the chipset will start in Q2 2012, zeroing in on growing demand for cost-effective car infotainment systems.
Consumers are now demanding real-time car infotainment experiences of synchronized and simultaneous streaming of textual and visual information, including real-time weather and traffic updates.
The chipset was developed in cooperation with Bosch Car Multimedia.
“We are integrating ST’s multi-standard digital radio receiver into our head-unit platform due to its outstanding performance, flexibility and integration benefits”, said Dr. Michael Bolle, Robert Bosch Car Multimedia GmbH, Executive Vice President Engineering.
“ST’s versatile solution allows us to easily address any market requirement with a cost-effective offering for next-generation in-car infotainment,” added he.
The chipset can receive and decode up to four channels in parallel, two for FM phase diversity and two for terrestrial digital broadcasting (e.g. DAB).
With this feature, the car radio can receive audio content from one channel, while pulling real-time traffic and weather information from another one at the same time.
The radio receiver can also seamlessly switch between the analog legacy FM and the digital radio signals and simultaneously demodulate audio and data from two separate digital radio channels (DAB 1.5).