Frontier Silicon Brings the World’s First Colour Touch Digital Radio Platform to Market

Frontier Silicon’s touch radio platform is at the heart of future home audio products enabling manufacturers to produce cost effective devices with highly intuitive user interfaces the likes of which are only seen on handheld MP3 players today

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Frontier Silicon, the leading supplier of connected audio technology, has announced that its Venice 8 module together with colour touch screen interface is enabling the “IKON” radio announced by Revo Technologies Ltd today. IKON, which is expected to be on sale in time for Christmas 2009, takes radio to a new level of usability. It is the first to feature a full colour touch screen interface supporting advanced multimedia capabilities, providing consumers with an all-in-one device which is able to receive radio programs wirelessly via the internet, DAB, FM, Last.fm as well as playing their music collection via a home network and docked iPOD.

“Touch user interfaces on handheld devices have proven to be immensely popular with consumers. Frontier Silicon is now able to bring this experience to the home audio market triggering manufacturers to produce highly innovative cost effective connected audio products.”

Anthony Sethill, CEO of Frontier Silicon, commented, “Touch user interfaces on handheld devices have proven to be immensely popular with consumers. Frontier Silicon is now able to bring this experience to the home audio market triggering manufacturers to produce highly innovative cost effective connected audio products.”

IKON broke cover for the first time today in an official Revo press launch. David Baxter, managing director of Revo Technologies Ltd., commented, "Frontier Silicon's new Venice 8 module is a massive step forward for digital radio devices, allowing the combination of a colour touch-screen interface with multi-format radio capabilities and premium online music services such as Last.fm. Revo are proud to have been a lead manufacturer for this exciting new platform, and are delighted that our IKON touch-radio will be the first product to showcase its many and varied next-generation features."

The Venice 8 FS2028 module provides manufacturers with a fully customisable 320 x 240 colour touch UI (user interface) providing seamless access to a vast range of audio visual content:

• Internet radio
• Home network streaming
• Premium audio streaming services from Last.fm and Pandora
• WorldDMB profile 1 DAB/ DAB+/ DMB-Radio
• FM-RDS
• USB music player

Several hardware and software configurations are available, for Wi-Fi and Ethernet networks, DAB Band 3, L-BAND and FM-RDS reception. Frontier Silicon is also working with radio broadcasters around the world to deliver WorldDMB Profile 2 advance DAB features such as Slideshow and the MPEG-4 BIFS specification to further enhance digital radio to become a rich audio visual experience.

The Venice 8 module is also available in a reference platform, Jupiter 8, with IR 3.0 software which is designed to operate seamlessly with the rest of the digital audio world. In addition to being capable of addressing the various digital radio standards, suitable end-products based on this platform should be able to obtain certification for various other industry standards such as CE/FCC approval, iPod and iPhone certification, wireless, DLNA and DRM certification.

Editor's notes

About Frontier Silicon Limited

http://www.frontier-silicon.com/about/index.htm

About Revo Technologies Ltd.

http://www.frontier-silicon.com/media/releases/09/about_Revo.htm