Microtune Provides Tuner-Related Verification Testing for Customers' U.S. Converter Set-Top Boxes, Facilitating NTIA Compliance and Certification

Business Wire, Sept 10, 2007

Certification to U.S. Government specifications requires manufacturers to verify converter set-top box compliance with ATSC A/74

Microtune's converter box testing reduces customers' design risk, while decreasing time-to-certification and time-to-market

PLANO, Texas -- Microtune([R]), Inc. (NASDAQ: TUNE) today announced that it is using its own test-verification facilities to assist customers in confirming that their converter set-top box designs will meet the tuner-related technical specifications dictated by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for the U.S. Government's coupon-eligible converter box (CECB) program.

By providing this testing service, Microtune enables its customers to ensure that their converter box designs meet the challenging tuner-related requirements set out by the NTIA, an essential step in obtaining approval for sale under the government's converter box coupon program. NTIA testing involves the capability of verifying compliance to more than 80 different parameters across all 69 digital TV channels.

"We believe that Microtune has one of the few facilities in the world that can test a converter set-top box to the difficult tuner-related requirements demanded by the NTIA," said James A. Fontaine, President and CEO of Microtune. "We have used our facilities and suite of test scenarios for our own ATSC A/74 testing events, and we can confirm compliance with applicable NTIA tuner specifications, including those of sensitivity, dynamic range, phase noise, co-channel rejection, adjacent and taboo channel rejection, burst noise immunity, and single static echo performance."

"The U.S. DTV transition is now at a crucial stage, and manufacturers are eager to finalize their converter box designs to match the NTIA deadlines. By providing the testing, and equally important, by generating the full report of RF tuner-related test results, we enable our customers to reduce their design risk and decrease their time-to-certification and time-to market," added Mr. Fontaine.

THE CECB PROGRAM

The NTIA, the government agency charged with administering the CECB program, established a certification process with rigidly-defined technical and feature requirements. Its goal is to ensure that eligible set-tops convert high-quality off-air digital signals into analog signals for consumers that rely on analog TVs. Manufacturers participating in the program must submit sample converter boxes, present test results and certify that their products meet NTIA requirements. The NTIA reserves the right to have production samples audit-tested by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as an added measure to ensure compliance.

An ATSC converter-box model, once it is certified, is entered into a government database and can be purchased, beginning in January 2008, by a consumer with a government coupon that will subsidize a portion of the cost. Only converter box models in the NTIA database are eligible for coupon subsidy.

DIFFICULT RECEIVER PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

The minimum performance specifications imposed by the NTIA include conformance with the A/74 Receiver Performance Guidelines adopted by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), the group that developed the performance standards for digital television in the U.S. Conformance to the A/74 guidelines ensures reliable, stable, error-free digital TV viewing for the consumer, but the guidelines are challenging to meet. In fact, the FCC released a report in March 2007 that documented its testing of DTV receivers and found that none of the tested receivers could fully achieve ATSC recommended guidelines. Specific details of this testing can be found in the FCC's Office of Engineering & Technology Report, FCC/OET-7-TR-1003. (The tested DTV products did not contain Microtune technology.)

MICROTUNE 3-IN-1 TECHNOLOGY DESIGNED FOR DTV TRANSITION

Microtune is currently verifying tuner-related performance in multiple customer converter box designs that are implementing its 3-in-1 tuner (the MicroTuner[TM] MT2131) and planned for submission to the NTIA for approval. The MT2131 tuner is engineered to support all three U.S. standards: analog (NTSC), digital (ATSC) and cable (Digital-Cable Ready). It is designed to exceed the radio frequency (RF) performance requirements specified by the NTIA, helping to drive very high-end digital TV reception quality into the consumer-TV and TV-peripherals mass market. Manufacturers can deploy the MT2131 as a single, flexible tuner to cost-effectively smooth the digital transition across all kinds of TV electronics, while bridging the multiple standards that co-exist today.

Mr. Fontaine added, "Microtune believes that tuner performance is critical to the quality of the consumer TV experience and is a factor in dictating if households can receive a stable, consistent digital TV picture. Our customers are also sensitive to these RF performance issues and want to ensure that they develop and build products that fully meet government specifications."