FM Radio in Smartphones: A Look Under the Hood

摘要

The number of Smartphones sold in the U.S. thatare equipped with FM radio receivers is increasing, but thedevil is in the details. While virtually all smartphones havean FM receiver chip on board today, only some of them haveFM reception fully enabled. There are also somesmartphone models in which FM reception is enabled inother countries but not the U.S., and even some models inwhich FM is enabled by one or more U.S. carrier(s) but notothers. In some of the latter cases, a software update or appdownload is all that is required to enable FM reception. Thispaper presents data on current penetration of smartphonesin the U.S., with NAB Labs' analysis of these phones' FMreception capability or "readiness." The paper also presentsfindings of smartphone teardown analysis, detailing theactual communications chips and software used by popularsmartphones.