London-based Frontier Silicon, a fabless semiconductor provider for mobile digital television and digital audio broadcast (DAB) digital radio products has closed a $28 million round of funding, the company reported.
The lead investor in the funding round was ACT Venture Capital, was supported by existing investors Apax Partners, Alta Berkeley and BlueRun Ventures (formerly Nokia Venture Partners), along with new investor Quilvest.
Frontier, founded in 2001, said it would use the funding to further develop its DAB digital radio products.
“This latest investment allows us to aggressively target and drive market share in the emerging mobile digital television market in the same way that we have established our chips in over 70 percent of DAB digital radios,” Anthony Sethill, CEO and founder of Frontier, said in a statement, “This new funding will be used to expand existing and open new design centers for our future mobile digital television IC and software products."
Sethill continued to say the company will continue to focus on technologies targeted at the digital radio and television markets, both for the home and mobile broadcast sectors.
Frontier is privately held. Other shareholders include GLG Partners, Digital One and Imagination Technologies.
Also this month, Frontier launched two new chips meant to allow a complete solution for receiving terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting services on mobile phone handsets.
“The convergence of mobile communications and broadcasting is happening now, and I believe the addition of low power TV tuners to mobile handsets will enable the next killer application for mobile phones, opening up significant new revenue opportunities for content providers and network operators,” Sethill said of the launch.
Frontier’s semiconductor products for mobile DTV, DTV and digital radio, include broadcast signal receiver modules, digital processing circuits, individual chips and system modules.
