Mobile TV chip-maker Siano Mobile Silicon has revealed that its CMMB receiver chip, the SMS1180, has been selected to power CMMB Mobile TV for leading Chinese phone-makers ZTE, Tianyu, CEC Telecom and MP3/4 company AIGO. Together, says Siano, the design wins position the company as the leading CMMB chip provider for up to a potential 30 million handsets and 10 million MP3 and MP4 players annually, thus dramatically extending and diversifying the chip-makers reach within the Chinese CMMB industry.
Siano will power multiple CMMB mobile phones made by K-Touch (Tianyu), ZTE and CEC Telecom, and a number of MP4/PMP products by AIGO. The newly-upgraded CMMB devices, planned for market launch in early 2009, will be fully compliant with the CMMB Conditional Access System (CAS), and with provisioning for the Secure Broadcast System that has been defined as part of CMMB devices by SARFT (the Chinese State Administration for Radio, Film and Television).
The CAS is designed to enable pay-TV services that will be added to the existing CMMB free-to-air channels in 2009, while the Secure Broadcast System is designed to block pirate, unauthorized broadcasting of CMMB signals.
The move by major Chinese brands to offer CMMB Mobile TV is representative of the rising consumer trend for watching TV on-the-go in China and the industry-wide belief that Mobile TV will prove the top sales factor for mobile phones during economic recession, says Siano. It adds that its CMMB receiver chip will enable access to TV content from over 30 channels, providing first-class picture quality, the lowest possible power consumption levels and exceptional reception; including deep indoor locations and whilst travelling at fast speeds.
It is an honour to be selected by the crme of the Chinese mobile and portable industry, and a strong testament to the set of advantages of our CMMB receiver chip, says Siano CEO, Alon Ironi. We are witnessing more and more leading Chinese brands deciding to use Sianos CMMB receiver in their new models. We estimate that CMMB will ultimately become the most popular Mobile TV technology worldwide and look forward to witnessing huge market ramp-up in China in 2009.
The CMMB standard, based on the Chinese homegrown technology known as STiMi (Satellite and Terrestrial Interactive Multiservice Infrastructure), is currently deployed in over 100 cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with nationwide coverage, supported by the addition of satellite broadcast, planned for 2009.  
There are two offerings to Siano's CMMB chipset: the SMS1185 supports antenna diversity on one single chip for both the terrestrial UHF signal and the satellite S-band signal. The SMS1180 supports only one antenna per each spectrum band. Both solutions exhibit very high sensitivity, excellent mobility performance, extremely low power consumption and the highest level of component integration.