The strong demand for analog-only television extends beyond China and India. Analog broadcasts will dominate the markets in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and large portions of Asia for the foreseeable future, said Randy Lawson, senior analyst for iSuppli. In these markets, CE manufacturers are experiencing significant sales as consumers look to replace legacy Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TVs with LCD and Plasma flat-panel models that do not include integrated digital receivers.

While television markets in Western Europe and North America lead the digital transition, the vast majority of the world continues to rely on analog reception. According to industry estimates, China alone has around 350 million television household subscribers, but only 20% of these households will be digital by 2010. The majority of India’s 100 million TV households employ analog-only receivers. The demand for analog remains robust in these key markets with industry experts forecasting sales growth of analog-only TVs.

The FM1050 legacy demodulator IC, designed to target the analog TV market, eliminate the need for multiple external SAW filters required for TV-grade reception. Fresco Microchip’s iSAW technology offers adjacent channel rejection and simplifies traditional designs through component count and cost reduction. The chip accepts a standard 36MHz intermediate frequency (IF) signal from a silicon tuner or traditional MOPLL based CAN tuner and demodulates standard (NTSC/PAL/SECAM) and non-standard worldwide audio/video analog formats. In addition, the FM1050 includes Fresco Microchip’s smartTUNE technology for enhancing picture quality by reducing the visible effects of television interference caused by tuner artifacts. The chip is suitable for standard analog-only tuner modules or on-board platforms commonly found in TVs, set-top boxes and DVD-Rs.

Fresco has established a strong foundation in hybrid television with several of the world’s largest tuner manufacturers, said Lance Greggain, CEO of Fresco Microchip. Sales of the FM1050 into underserved legacy markets builds on Fresco’s strong market traction to-date and is an integral part of the company’s growth strategy.

Fresco Microchip is a Canada-based developer of radio frequency, mixed-signal and digital signal processing integrated circuits (ICs).