Frost & Sullivan Recognizes CrestaTech for Universal Broadband Receiver Technology for the Mobile TV Receiver Market

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the mobile TV receiver market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes CrestaTech with the 2010 North American Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation of the Year Award for its CrestaTV™ Universal Broadband Receiver technology. This solution combines a programmable radio-frequency (RF) chip and software, which enable PCs to receive live analog or digital TV broadcast, radio, and global positioning system (GPS) signals.

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CrestaTV™'s receiver comprises the CTC-200/201 programmable RF, interface integrated circuit (IC), and multi-threaded signal processing software. It supports the widest range of broadband frequencies, including analog TV, the European and American digital TV formats, and FM radio and GPS capabilities.

The failure of the mobile television handset market had bred a new generation of mobile TV chip vendors that target the PC, laptop, and smart-phone original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for the PC-TV market. However, the PC-TV market also turned out to be a disappointment due to a series of technical challenges and advances in Internet media streaming, making it redundant.

The prevalence of analog TV in many parts of the world and the proliferation of digital standards for terrestrial and mobile TV transmission meant that PC-TV chipsets functioned only in restricted geographical regions. Moreover, they normally have poor signal reception and require 20-30 minutes to scan broadcast channels. These issues, along with high costs, have made OEMs reluctant to integrate mobile TV chips into their products. Most users of PC-TV receivers have to buy geography-specific, commoditized, off-the-shelf products, which have little mobility or value-added functionality.

CrestaTV™ addresses most of these issues through its programmable Universal Broadband Receiver technology, and provides a host of value-added functionalities through CrestaWare, a companion suite of software applications that includes fast channel scanning, enhanced reception, TV, and radio tower geo-location.

"CrestaTech employs parallel processing techniques to reduce CPU load to levels comparable to competitors hardware based solutions," says Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Anil Vijayachandran. "The software-defined technology enables dynamic balancing of quality, speed, and power dissipation based on the availability of processing resources."

OEMs can implement CrestaTV™ on peripheral component interconnect (PCI) express cards for desktops and PCI mini-express cards or universal serial bus (USB) TV modules for laptops. The fully integrated solution eliminates all external filters and supports frequencies from 45Mhz to 1GHz - and the L1 band.

The receiver technology involves a broadband tuner, which scans the entire TV spectrum for analog and digital signals, along with an integrated GPS. It aids a directed, intelligent scan, determining device location and all channels receivable - in just three seconds. The solution offers an open platform that allows user-generated content programs and enables users of social media websites to chat live while watching live content. It also allows users to create a custom channel with user-selected programs from the entire array of received content.

"This product could transform laptop PCs into universal mobile media centers, capable of simultaneously accessing live broadcast TV, AM/FM radio, and GPS," notes Vijayachandran. "The flexibility of the device will enable access to a wide range of future markets, including mobile phones, smart-phones, and other portable devices."

The CrestaTech innovation is significantly more economical than competing solutions and addresses the challenges that had restricted the widespread integration of mobile TV chips with PCs. Now, with CrestaTech's solution, a single, low-cost off-the-shelf unit can operate universally and it adds a powerful suite of functionalities to PCs.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has carried out new research, which has resulted in innovations that have or are expected to bring significant contributions to the industry in terms of adoption, change, and competitive posture. This award recognizes the quality and depth of a company's research and development program as well as the vision and risk-taking that has enabled it to undertake such an endeavor.

Frost & Sullivan's Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

About CrestaTech

CrestaTech, headquartered in Santa Clara, CA is a pioneer in the wireless media receiver market, with the first fully programmable software-defined wireless media receiver ICs. The startup, founded in 2005 by George T. Haber and Mihai Murgulescu and funded by Andy Bechtolsheim and Sofinnova, is led by an experienced management team with expertise in developing video and communications technologies and with building game-changing and successful technology companies.

About Frost & Sullivan

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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan