Legend Silicon was founded to develop digital transmission technology for digital television (DTV) and broadband multimedia data casting. The company’s mission is “to become a leading developer and supplier of infrastructure and terminal silicon for broadband wireless and DTV technologies.” Legend recently secured second round funding led by SUNeVision Ventures. Dragon Venture, Intel Capital, Savage Venture, Star Cluster and Tsinghua Tongfang also participated. The company will use the funding to extend its technology and product development in China.

Legend Silicon has developed a wireless transmission technology that combines digital television broadcasting with Internet data services. Its DTV transmission protocol, called WIDB (Wireless Internet Digital Broadcasting), combines spread-spectrum and orthogonal frequency-division multiplex (OFDM) technologies. Compared with other wireless technologies, this protocol has the advantages of high data rate, excellent mobile reception capability supporting single frequency-based cellular networks, a synchronization scheme suitable for data communications, a power saving design for handheld devices, and a scalable modulation scheme.

With its partner, Tsinghua University, Legend is focused on driving WIDB as the China standard for terrestrial digital TV broadcasting. Legend is developing a family of products for wireless broadband solutions, including front-end IC products for televisions, Internet and TV set-top boxes, and handheld devices. The company is also developing head end equipment that converts analog transmissions to digital.

Hong Dong, CEO