Freescale, Vestel to co-develop RF remote controlled LCD TV

IFA 2010, AUSTIN, USA: Freescale Semiconductor and Vestel Electronics announced that they have been working together to develop an LCD-TV with radio frequency (RF) remote control that uses Freescale’s BeeStack Consumer ZigBee-RF4CE platform.

Vestel, one of the largest TV manufacturers in Europe, worked with Freescale to design the RF target board to replace infrared (IR) in the TV and implement the RF4CE network.

Freescale provided technical expertise for the RF design and a fully operational software solution using Freescale’s BeeStack Consumer protocol stack. The design is compatible with ZigBee RF4CE, a standard which is replacing IR in many new remote controls.

RF4CE offers several advantages over aging IR, notably removal of line-of-sight and field-of-vision restrictions, elimination of interference caused by large screen TVs, improved power consumption and new features only feasible with a modern bi-directional technology.

“We are delighted to have Vestel become the latest major consumer electronics manufacturer to use Freescale’s ZigBee RF4CE solution for their new remote controlled LCD-TV,” said Brett Black, manager of Freescale’s Wireless Connectivity Organization. “Working together, Freescale’s leadership in RF home entertainment control and Vestel’s consumer electronics expertise will continue to improve the consumer viewing experience.”

“As a leader in the consumer electronics space, Vestel is committed to delivering the highest quality entertainment experiences to our consumers across devices,” said Hakan Kutlu, deputy general manager of sales and marketing at The Vestel Group.

“Freescale has a proven track record of enabling a powerful developer community and delivering the best quality of entertainment control and connectivity for millions of users around the world.”

The Vestel Group of companies is a leading player in European and global markets for consumer electronics, white goods and digital products, accounting for 16 percent of the LCD-TV market and 25 percent of the digital set-top-box market in Europe.

With its proven technology and design and development competencies, Vestel is one of the world’s leading OEM and ODM producers. Vestel and their partner OEM brands will demonstrate the new LCD-TV with the ZigBee RF4CE remote control in Hall 8.2/101 at the Internationale Funkaustellung (IFA), also known as the Berlin Consumer Fair, held Sept. 3-8, 2010.

Vestel is supported and supplied locally via franchised distributor Future Electronics, headquartered for the EMEA region in Egham, UK. Future Electronics has recently introduced a new state-of-the-art EMEA distribution centre in Leipzig Germany.

The new ZigBee-RF4CE controlled LCD-TVs are expected to be shipping in production starting Q1 2011.