The Silicon Labs radio product line addresses the growing cost performance challenge in the automotive industry

     Silicon Labs has launched the industry's most scalable, flexible and cost-effective automotive radio solution for the global automotive infotainment market. Silicon Labs' new portfolio of Global Eagle and Dual Eagle AM/FM receivers, Digital radio tuners, and Digital Falcon coprocessors It enables automakers and Tier 1 suppliers to meet the needs of all market segments, costs, performance levels and digital radio standards, while also meeting stringent automotive quality standards. Based on Silicon Labs' new offerings, it is possible to extend OEM and aftermarket radio designs from low-cost, single-tuner AM/FM radios to high-performance systems with multiple tuners and multiple antennas, enabling automotive radio suppliers to leverage their R&D investments across multiple product lines. And all product lines can use the same common software API.

     According to IHS Markit, the global light vehicle market will reach 93.5 million units this year, with radio systems divided into segments such as entry-level, mid-level and premium. To meet this broad market, radio suppliers develop different radio systems to meet various cost targets within the same model. If the existing solution is adopted, it will require significant R&D investment to address all market segments of numerous models. Silicon Labs is the only automotive radio solution provider that offers a scalable hardware/software platform, which enables automotive radio vendors to cater to multiple markets with the same radio hardware and software design. This superior flexibility helps customers reduce design, certification, procurement and inventory costs.

     Analog AM/FM receivers and digital radio tuners The Global Eagle(Si4795x) and Dual Eagle(Si4796x and Si4797x) product families set new standards for scalability and automotive radio reception. The Eagle product family extends Silicon Labs' field performance proven tuner and receiver offerings already deployed by leading automotive Oems and Tier 1 suppliers worldwide. The Si479xx device utilizes Silicon Labs' patented low-IF digital architecture to deliver superior RF performance and anti-interference capabilities. In addition, the Si479xx product family's comprehensive firmware algorithm dynamically adjusts the signal reception of moving vehicles to ensure optimal reception performance in the harshest field conditions.

     Audio subsystems in the two Eagle product families provide a complete solution for synchronizing, processing and distributing digital and audio signals to automotive audio machines. To speed time to market, Silicon Labs offers four - and six-channel audio post-processing reference designs that support equalizer, loudness compensation, tone control, harmonic generation, and audio source mixing. This flexible architecture can also integrate customer or third-party algorithms.

     The Digital Falcon(Si469x) family of digital Radio coprocessors provides channel demodulation and source decoding for HD Radio and DAB/DAB+ digital signals transmitting audio and data. The Digital Falcon coprocessor greatly simplifies system design and minimizes bill of materials (BOM) by eliminating the off-chip RAM memory modules typically required for channel decoding by third-party digital radio processors. The Digital Falcon product family, with its seamless mixing capabilities for DAB/DAB+ and ALTA support for HD systems, enables designs to scale from low-end to high-end systems.

     Brian Mirkin, general manager of broadcast products at Silicon Labs, said: "When Silicon Labs introduced the first single-chip RF-in-CMOS audio IC 12 years ago, we redefined the design of AM/FM receivers in consumer electronics by reducing the component count by more than 90 percent and the board area by more than 60 percent. To date, Silicon Labs has shipped more than 1.5 billion single-chip radio ics, including more than 50 million OEM automotive tuners. The latest Global Eagle, Dual Eagle and Digital Falcon product families bring the industry's most advanced and scalable automotive radio system solutions."