Home > Pending > Cable TV Front-End Chip from STMicroelectronics Supports Triple QAM and DOCSIS 3.0 Channel-Bonding

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Cable TV Front-End Chip from STMicroelectronics Supports Triple QAM and DOCSIS 3.0 Channel-Bonding

6th March 2007

ES Admin

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STMicroelectronics has announced a low-cost front-end solution for Cable TV STBs that supports the DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) 2.0 standard, and is fully compatible with the DOCSIS 3.0 channel-bonding scheme, which delivers a dramatic downstream bandwidth improvement. The new STV0498 complements ST’s long-established STV0297 QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) demodulator family, which is now deployed in more than 30 million Cable TV STBs. It supports downstream channel bonding, based on the DOCSIS 3.0 specification, and offers aggregate DOCSIS downstream rates up to 120 Mbit/s. By supporting the new standard, the STV0498 will allow manufacturers to produce cost-effective, high-performance STBs for the interactive and video-on-demand services now offered and planned by cable operators.

This new front end includes a high-performance ST40 CPU, with 450-DMIPS (Dhrystone MIPS) capability, for advanced network processing, and integrates three QAM demodulators with forward error correction (FEC) to allow flexible usage between DOCSIS and the video signal in interactive STBs and PVRs (Personal Video Recorders). It supports both IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) and the next-generation IPv6, which makes more internet addresses available to operators and will allow multicasts and future network evolution.

Integrated Ethernet and Hi-Speed USB interfaces provide a low cost connection to the application’s host computer. The STV0498 is fully supported with an evaluation board and software to minimize the time-to-market for a range of cable platforms, including DSG (DOCSIS Set-top Gateway) boxes and high-performance cable modems.

The STV0498 solution is supplied in 386-pin package along with a 100-pin TQFP packaged mixed-signal transceiver, priced together at $16.00 in quantities of 10,000. Engineering samples are available now to high-volume customers, with wider sampling availability in Q2 2007. Volume production is planned for Q3 2007.