Cue Corp., Irvine, Calif., has entered into an agreement with STMicroelectronics Inc. to develop an AM/FM decoder chip for Cue’s new SkySpeed.com network for mobile Internet applications for automotive and consumer products.
“We expect that within a year the SkySpeed network will cover 90 percent of the population of Canada and the United States, and this chip will become integral to a wide variety of Internet appliances,” said Gordon Kaiser, chairman and chief executive officer of Cue.
SkySpeed.com uses a proprietary technology called SuperDARC to broadcast data over the subcarrier facilities of FM radio stations at a rate of 65 kilobits per second. The network also will use AM radio station facilities to transmit data at 16 kbps.
ST, based in Lexington, Mass., is a designer and manufacturer of semiconductor integrated circuits and discrete devices. It was formerly called SGS-Thomson Microelectronics.
“Wireless Internet applications will become increasingly important to the automotive industry. We expect this chip will play a critical role in that development,” said Sergio Garue, general manager of ST’s automotive division.
Cue said it will maintain its existing networks in addition to the new SkySpeed.com network. For the past decade, Cue has broadcast paging and other data on the 57-kilohertz subcarrier band to about 150,000 customers who are long-haul truckers.
In 1997, Cue launched its Data Radio Channel, or DARC, network on the 76-kilohertz subcarrier band to provide voice paging. The Cue network also distributes real-time traffic information across North America to Microsoft Auto PC and a variety of handheld wireless devices.
