Digital Car Radio Drives For 2005 Models

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September 30, 2003 (7:04 AM EDT)

Park Ridge, Ill. - The move toward CD-quality car radios is gaining momentum with Kenwood Corp.'s delivery of the first HD Radio tuner and Philips Semiconductors' announcement that it is ready to roll out a new chip that could help cut the cost of entry into the fledgling market.

The separate rollouts of the chip and tuner-a black box that plugs into an existing car radio-follow on the heels of Texas Instruments Inc.'s introduction of an HD Radio chip earlier this month. Analysts believe the introductions could be a sign that automakers are preparing to launch the HD Radio technology in their 2005 vehicles, which debut less than a year from now. HD Radio technology sends digital signals over current radio spectrum.

Kenwood said last week that it has delivered the first production run of 1,000 of its HD Radio tuners. IBiquity Digital Corp. (Columbia, Md.), the licenser of the HD Radio technology, said that it will add its own software and take preorders on Kenwood tuners from broadcasters at this week's NAB Radio Show in Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, Philips said that its new chip, which is scheduled for introduction today, will go into volume production during the first quarter of 2004.

"Now that the silicon makers are coming up to speed, we can finally expect to see this technology leave the gate on the consumer side," said Frank Viquez, director of automotive electronics for Allied Business Intelligence Inc. (Oyster Bay, N.Y.).

Philips hopes that the $25 price tag of its SAF3550 chip will attract automakers, enabling them to put the technology into their high-end vehicles. The company said it is working on integrating the chip into products made by a number of radio receiver manufacturers, including Alpine Electronics, Bose, Delphi Delco Electronics Systems, Harman Becker Automotive Systems, Panasonic, Pioneer Electronics, Siemens VDO and Visteon, among others.

"This is the first chip available to radio assemblers that offers a cost-effective solution for HD Radio," said Jack Morgan, director of automotive in North America for Philips Semiconductors. Morgan noted that the chip is a good deal less expensive than its predecessors, which ranged from $30 to $50.

No price was available for Kenwood's tuner at press time.

Philips engineers said they've been careful to develop their HD Radio chip in a way that makes it possible for automakers to add HD capabilities to existing radio designs, sparing them the cost of having to redesign their products from scratch.

HD Radio technology adds sidebands to existing AM and FM radio frequencies. The sidebands carry additional signals that enable conventional AM radios to produce "FM-type" sound, and enable FM radios to produce "CD-type" sound, iBiquity said. To accomplish that, however, HD Radio receivers must be endowed with specialized digital signal processors, which allow radios to capture signals from the sidebands.

Philips engineers said they hope to simplify the process of building HD Radios by providing DSP-based plug-in modules that could be easily added to existing DSP-based radios. The SAF3550 accomplishes that by working with an existing Philips chip set, the SAF7730 IF-CarDSP and the TEF6721 companion tuner.

"Radio manufacturers prefer to use the platform concept," Morgan said. "With the platform, they have the ability to add HD Radio or leave it off."

As a result, radio makers can employ the same platform across their product line without having to shoulder the extra cost of adding HD Radio capabilities to midline or low-end products.

Philips engineers also said they expect their new chip to appeal to tier-one vendors because it offers processing power of 650 million instructions per second, thus enabling it to serve in vehicles that have separate rear-seat audio systems. The raw number-crunching power is needed in applications that must do HD Radio processing in addition to other audio chores, such as playing MP3 files, Morgan said.

Makers of next-generation car radios said last week they are building products based on the Philips SAF3550 and on Texas Instruments Inc.'s DRI250 baseband, introduced three weeks ago. TI is sampling the chip for $30 each, and expects to be in production early in 2004. Most radio makers said they plan to roll out their first HD Radio-based receivers in the first quarter of 2004.

Visteon said that it now has a production-ready receiver available that will be employed on a European-based production vehicle in the 2005 model year, debuting approximately a year from now.

Industry analysts said last week that the HD Radio scheme has enormous economic potential because it requires little investment on the part of radio broad-casters, and because it requires no subscription fees to be paid by users. In addition to supplying higher-quality audio, the technology also provides a data signal that broadcasters find appealing because they could potentially use it as an advertising venue.

Still, many local broadcasters that have implemented the technology have been frustrated by the lack of available receivers. Receivers were supposed to have been ready during the summer, but manufacturers had to push back their introductions after a last-minute switch in the audio codec that serves as the heart of the HD system.

"Broadcasters can't even get working receivers to take around to show the concept to their advertisers," said Laura Behrens, senior analyst for GartnerG2 (Stamford, Conn.). Behrens said she knows of one broadcaster that tried four different demonstration receivers, only to find that none of them worked properly.

Behrens added, however, that those who have seen the technology during the past month or so have described the sound as "stunning."

"This technology has the potential to go in every car in America," Behrens said. "The question is: Will the change begin next year, or will it happen in 2012?"