DAB, a decade-old digital radio broadcasting technology based on Europe's Eureka-147 standard, is poised to take off in volume later this year

DAB, a decade-old digital radio broadcasting technology based on Europe's Eureka-147 standard, is poised to take off in volume later this year as an ordinary radio embedded in ubiquitous household appliances. The opening results from the entry of one the U.K.'s biggest brand-name appliance manufacturers into the DAB market, according to a key player in the emerging market. RadioScape, a London-based DAB technology supplier, announced Monday (May 19) that Morphy Richards, the U.K. appliance manufacturer, will roll out a range of DAB radios using a DAB radio module designed by RadioScape. RadioScape is predicting DAB radio units, which the industry sold only in the "high tens of thousand of units" last year in the U.K. will grow close to a million worldwide in 2003. RadioScape's DAB module, integrated with analog FM reception capability, consists of an RF front-end, D-to-A converter, Texas Instruments' DSP, flash memory and A-to-D converter, all handpicked by RadioScape in terms of quality and availability in mass volume. The module also comes with RadioScape's core software that runs real-time demodulation and decoding and user interface software. Morphy Richards' DAB radios will be produced by an unnamed Asian radio manufacturer that will use DAB modules built by Taiwan-based Gyro Signal, one of the first companies to license RadioScape's DAB module design.