China's homegrown mobile TV spec gains chip support

A chip company in China claims that it has developed the first mobile TV chip based on a domestic specification called China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB).

Called IF101, the CMMB demodulator was developed by Beijing Innofidei Technology, a member of the CMMB workgroup. The group is backed by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), which played a key role in developing CMMB and is advocating its adoption as China's main mobile TV technology.

Few details are available about the chip, but the company claimed it is ready for commercialization, and has fulfilled basic requirements for power consumption, sensitivity and cost.

SARFT is planning to build a regional test network in Beijing by June and to start trials by year end. The goal is to nationally deploy CMMB by the first half of 2008.

Homegrown tech
In a report published in SARFT's monthly magazine, Innofidei said it's also developing technology for watching TV on cellphones and PMPs. Last October, a government ministry rolled the CMMB spec, based on homegrown technology known as STiMi (short for satellite and terrestrial interactive multiservice infrastructure). The service operates in the 2.6GHz frequency, using 25MHz of bandwidth to offer 25 video and 30 radio channels, plus some data channels.

STiMi was developed by the Academy of Broadcast Science, part of a government ministry that regulates broadcasting. STiMi supports the S- and UHF/VHF bands, and will use both satellites and terrestrial relays to implement coverage. The technology bears some resemblance to Europe's DVB-SH.

For now, there are three mobile TV standards in China: T-DMB, DAB, which is derived DMB-T/H and CMMB. DAB and DMB are being used in mobile multimedia broadcasting in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Meanwhile, some analysts think CMMB, as a homegrown standard, will be a trend for the long run, but in the next two to three years, DMB will still be dominant.

- Cai Yan
EE Times