Hello everyone
A new design I'm working on is basically a whole-house integrated entertainment system.
In each room is a small touch panel where you can select the audio for that room from a brace of common sources, like a media server, cd player, iPod, Satellite receiver etc etc
All the sources are connected to a common control module, which is basically a smart matrix connecting rooms to sources.
The customer wants a pair of AM/FM Radio receivers built into the matrix.
I've been looking at digitally controlled radio receivers, and found the Silicon Labs Si4735 chip - which would be ideal for this project.
However here is the rub - no one stocks it. Farnell do not list it; Mouser and Digikey list it, but mouser's minimum order quantity is 190 and DigiKey's moq is 5000!
Silicon Labs do not offer it in their product sample range, and will not sell direct in an area where they have a distributor.
So, here's the question, and it's a two part-er :-
A. Where can I buy this chip in small qunatities in the UK? (Small quantities for BETA, production will be runs of 100 or 200 at a time).
or
B. Can anyone suggest an easier to find alternative, preferably from Farnell, with the following features:
i. Selectable AM/FM reception
ii. Controllable by micro processor (ie embeddable)
iii. Gives RDS data such as channel name/genre.
Thanks in advance
Kenny M.