Konka to use TV tuner from NXP

NXP Semiconductors N.V. has stated that its hybrid silicon TV tuner, TDA18273, will be used by Konka Group Co. Ltd. for its analog and digital TV—making Konka the first in China to use the silicon tuner in TV receiver design and bring it to market on a large scale.

The number of components sets apart the single-chip tuner solution from traditional designs that use up to 150 parts, many of which require manual alignment during manufacturing. In contrast, the TDA18273 has incorporated oscillators, IF selectivity and wide band gain control, NXP stated. It also eliminates the need for external components such as low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters and baluns. The device allows the tuner function to be put directly on the main board, whereas traditional can tuners make encapsulation in a module mandatory. Overall, silicon tuner applications require only one-third the size of the can tuner, making multiple tuner applications possible in a very small footprint, added NXP.

"Traditional TV tuners have reached a stage of maturity in size and price, making further technological advances difficult. To overcome this, we are continuously looking at highly integrated solutions for more attractive system costs. Silicon tuners integrating the tuner function and channel filters are one such building block. NXP silicon tuner technology is helping us to design products that meet and exceed current market requirements," said Guo Bin, deputy director of the institute of new technology at Konka.

"With silicon tuners poised to replace traditional MOPLL-based can tuners in all applications, the NXP TDA18273 addresses the growing global demand for highly integrated, low-power and ultra-slim TV architectures. NXP's silicon tuners speed up the design-in process, save production costs and improve performance. They also save space in multi-tuner systems and reduce energy requirements," said Wu Guohui, director of marketing, TV front-end and multimedia interface products for NXP.