Qualcomm Develops New Mobile TV Broadcasting Chip

In a major development for mobile broadcasting, chipset major and developer of CDMA technology, Qualcomm, has announced a single-chip Universal Broadcast Modem (UBM) that supports three mobile broadcast standards: Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H), one-segment Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Terrestrial (ISDB-T) and its own FLO technology. It will enable a common platform that handset manufacturers can leverage to address multiple standards.

The UBM is designed as a companion to Qualcomm’s Mobile Station Modem (MSM) baseband chipsets, but, Qualcomm says, can be used with other products. It can work with transmission across the full UHF bandwidth, 470MHz to 862MHz using 5, 6, 7 or 8MHz channels and supports single- and multi-frequency networks. However in a major setback it does not support the 3GPP’s Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS), which will be available both for GSM/EDGE and WCDMA. Mobile TV services based on MBMS are expected in the 2008 timeframe. The chip is designed to be compatible with both CDMA2000 and WCDMA/UMTS devices and is expected to ship in sample quantities in the first quarter of 2007.