TI And Radioscape Launch Chips And Modules For Digital Radio Mondiale Standard

(Product News, 13 Jul 2005)

Texas Instruments Incorporated and RadioScape have announced the chips and modules for the Digital Radio Mondiale standard. TI has released the digital baseband that supports both DRM and Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) standards, and RadioScape, using its Software Defined Digital Radio approach, has introduced a module supporting not only DRM, but also DAB, FM-RDS and Analogue AM standards.

The TMS320DRM3xx family is based on TI's digital signal processor (DSP) technology and RadioScape's Software Defined Digital Radio approach. The DRM300 baseband supports DRM, while the single-chip DRM350 baseband supports DRM as well as DAB. With the DRM350 baseband, DRM/DAB-based devices can be created with a single chip. New features, customized variants and modifications can be implemented on the programmable DSP architecture of the DRM300 and DRM350 chips, avoiding hard-wired re-spins. This flexibility also allows for future support of digital content playback, including MP3 and Windows Media Audio (WMA).

RadioScape's modules based on TI's DRM300 and DRM350 chips will be available from RadioScape and will support FM-RDS and AM in software. The RS500 supplies the necessary hardware and software to design and build receivers able to support any combination of DRM, DAB, FM-RDS and AM. DRM is the digital radio system for the short-wave, medium-wave and long-wave AM broadcast bands. Pricing for both the DRM300 and DRM350 chips starts at $18 in sample quantities of 1K or less and are expected to be available in 3Q05. RadioScape´s DRM module is expected to be available in 3Q05.