Friday, March 23, 2007

Microtune Tuner Strategy for Mobile TV Leverages Core Technology, Market Leadership and Standards Expertise; Company Product Direction Encompasses Sin

INGOLSTADT, Germany -- In Europe last week for the kick-off of commercial mobile TV services and for the introduction of handsets using its tuner, Microtune(R), Inc. President and CEO James A. Fontaine revealed the company's product strategy to meet the needs of worldwide mobile/portable TV manufacturers for future radio frequency (RF) electronics.

"Leveraging our patented MicroTuner(TM) architecture, coupled with our market leadership in silicon TV tuner-chips and digital TV expertise, our product plan is to develop new multi-standard, poly-band, universal TV tuners that can help drive the development of the global market for mobile and portable TV," said Mr. Fontaine.

"We expect the commercial rollouts for the 2006 FIFA World Cup to serve as an excellent proving ground for mobile TV services. They will rigorously test the entire broadcasting system, while spurring interest, demand and deployments. We are proud that our DVB-H tuner technology is deployed in the LG Electronics' LG-U900 handsets that will be used in the Italian Hutchison (3) launch. As additional mobile TV networks are introduced worldwide, we believe that multiple mobile TV standards, as with other digital TV standards, will co-exist across regions or countries. We intend to support these multiple standards with our advanced tuner technology.

"Our goal is to provide high-performance tuners to as wide a market as possible, while permitting our customers to cost effectively develop multi-market end products. In the process, we expect to solidify a leadership position as the preferred RF supplier to major consumer electronics manufacturers."

According to Mr. Fontaine, Microtune plans to expand upon its existing ATSC, DVB-T and DVB-H-based products to develop universal tuners. They will be engineered as miniature single chips that support multiple mobile TV standards, while also easily enabling compact dual-tuner configurations for personal video recording and diversity applications. Anticipating the convergence of digital TV broadcast, multimedia and connectivity as part of the evolution of handsets and portable devices, the company also plans to investigate strategies to bridge its current tuner portfolio with expanded RF functions.

As the first initiative in its strategy, Microtune plans to expand its Mobile MicroTuner product family for the DVB-T, DVB-H, T-DMB, ISDB-T and DMB-TH specifications. When implemented into consumer multimedia devices, the new tuners will enable users to access a variety of content -- digital TV broadcasts, mobile TV broadcasts, digital radio and teletext -- while roaming across countries that offer differing standards.

Combining standards with expanded RF functions, Microtune expects that its future tuners will permit manufacturers to develop products for global markets without the added expense and duplication of effort to design standard- or feature-specific devices. They will help to accelerate a customer's time-to-market and reduce costly development investments, while maintaining the very high level of RF performance and silicon integration associated with current Microtune products.

"With the continuation of worldwide field trials, the emergence of competitive specifications such as T-DMB, and most significantly, the first launch of commercial DVB-H services in Italy, the emerging TV-on-mobile devices market is dynamically moving forward," said Paul O'Donovan, Principal Research Analyst, Semiconductor Group, Gartner Dataquest.

"Italy will prove a tipping point. The experience of Hutchison (3) in delivering mobile TV services in Rome, Milan, Turin and other cities will serve as both a test case and learning experience, identifying the interest of consumers, the appeal of content, the ruggedness of the broadcast system, the new capabilities in the mobile phones and, most importantly, the validity of the business model," O'Donovan added. "A key criteria of initial success will be quality of the TV reception. Consumers know what TV looks like, and the new DVB-H mobile phones will need to deliver high-quality, consistent TV pictures on the small LCD screens."

As examples of Microtune's successful multi-standard approach, Mr. Fontaine cited the recently announced Mobile MicroTuner MT2266, a dual-standard (DVB-T and DVB-H), dual-band (UHF and VHF-Band III) chip that receives and tunes both digital terrestrial TV and mobile broadcast TV signals. Microtune's first Mobile MicroTuner product, the MT2260, was the industry's first multi-band (UHF/L-Band) DVB-H tuner to be introduced, sampled and put into production. This chip is currently deployed in LG's LG-U900 mobile phone.



Fonix VoiceCentral Available for Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PCs

Ana Martinez, a fundraising and customer service professional, is visually impaired and relies on assistive technologies in her business and personal life. "I've been tremendously impressed with VoiceCentral and what it can do for those of us with visual disabilities," she says. "Fonix has the right idea and this solution 'speaks' to me and my needs."

With speech-enabled access to PDA functions, VoiceCentral gives end users with busy lifestyles a convenient, easy-to-use communication solution. "To be able to get through my email while driving is a big benefit to me," says Guy Sucharczuk, CEO, Aurora Networks. "VoiceCentral makes my travel time more productive."

"Fonix VoiceCentral gives users easy access and management of information on handheld devices," says Walt Nawrocki, VP and GM, Fonix Speech. "As device capabilities increase, and users are able to add more music, photos and video to devices, speech recognition becomes a 'must have' interface to avoid tedious menus and button pushing."

Fonix VoiceCentral 3.1 capabilities:

* Access all VoiceCentral functions on the device without pushing buttons via a Bluetooth headset.

* Access emails and reply via an audio recording.

* Create custom commands such as "Play Music" or "Browse website."

* Dial a number, press "save," and save it to the Outlook contact list.

* Maximize important info on the device screen by minimizing the VoiceCentral toolbar.

* Call contacts stored on the Sim card as well as the PDA.

* Access the "Contacts" and "Launch Apps" pages with easy-to-use menus.

For information or purchase, customers may also call Fonix at (801) 553-6600 and say "VoiceCentral."

About Fonix Speech, Inc.

Fonix Speech, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fonix Corporation that currently offers voice technology solutions for mobile/wireless devices; interactive videogames, toys and appliances; computer telephony systems; the assistive market and automotive telematics.

About Fonix

Fonix Corporation (OTC BB: FNIX), based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is an innovative communications and technology company that provides integrated telecommunications services and value-added speech technologies through Fonix Telecom, Inc., LecStar Telecom, Inc. and Fonix Speech, Inc. The combination of interactive speech technology and integrated telecommunications services allows Fonix to provide customers with comprehensive cost-effective solutions to enhance and expand their communications needs. Visit www.fonix.com for more information, or call (801) 553-6600 and say "Sales."

Statements released by Fonix that are not purely historical are forward-looking within the meaning of the "Safe Harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the Company's expectations, hopes, intentions and strategies for the future. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainties that may affect the Company's business prospects and performance. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Risk factors include general economic, competitive, governmental and technological factors as discussed in the Company's filings with the SEC on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. The Company does not undertake any responsibility to update the forward-looking statements contained in this release.


Celoxica Unveils Next-Generation Video and Imaging Platform; RC340 Programmable Platform Fully Integrated Into ESL-design Flows for Real-Time Video, I

OXFORDSHIRE, England -- Celoxica (LSE:CXA) today announced availability of the RC340, the company's latest programmable platform for designers of advanced digital video and imaging applications. The RC340 is for prototyping and development of high-performance, high-throughput FPGA and soft-core microprocessor-based applications such as HDTV, broadcast, robotics and industrial vision systems, video compression, video distribution, high-speed encrypted VPN, packet filtering and network intrusion detection.

The RC340 includes a 16M Gate Xilinx Virtex 4 FPGA, direct access to 32Mbytes of pipelined SRAM, a DIMM socket for DRAM and is supported with a wide range of video I/O and peripherals. The RC340 is also available with the PixelStreams video IP library and a complete suite of electronic system level (ESL) design software for new levels of hardware/software integration.

High-performance video, including stereoscopic video applications, is enabled by the dual video inputs and outputs, including both digital video to the DVI standard and analog video. As an option, the board can be supplied with a high-resolution 1024x768 12.1-inch TFT/Touchscreen offering a quality and size of display unique in the industry, and a mobile and compact demonstration vehicle for imaging applications such as in-car infotainment and mobile devices.

Communications are provided by dual gigabit Ethernet MAC/PHYs and 10/100/1000baseT sockets offering capability for data streaming, data distribution and high performance network applications. The board also offers a USB 2.0 connection for high-speed bit file download and for host to FPGA application communications. To assist with debug, application status reporting and user interaction, the board has 8 user-programmable LEDs and a four-line, 16 character LCD display as well as audio in/out, including SPDIF digital out, PS2 keyboard and mouse connectors and dual RS232 ports. The board also provides an SDCard socket for the storage of bit files for the FPGA and user application data.

"The RC340 is the latest and very capable addition to our industry proven and widely adopted RC300 Series of programmable platforms," said Graham McKenzie, product marketing manager for Celoxica. "Board level features and architecture have been optimized for high performance real-time video and imaging applications and the board is available stand alone or fully integrated into our ESL design software and video IP libraries."



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